Matt Jacoby

A fairly thin plot is kept alive throughout thanks to brilliant acting and that it's one of few films that really is nonstop action from start to finish and not one of the endless Fast & Furious movies. Ok, Jason's character is some sort of mob hitman. But things have caught up with him and he killed the wrong man. A guy associated with that man, Ricky Verona, gives Jason's character some "Beijing Cocktail" after (presumably) knocking him out. Now because he's been drugged up Jason's character is an adrenaline junkie and his life literally depends on that too. Simplify the action to say that the story immediately and always follows Jason's characters need to keep moving and keep pumped or else he's quite literally dead. IDK about the sequel as I've yet to watch it. Might do a review soon on it as it's on the same streaming platform that I'm revisiting the original one on. But suffice it to say that the first is just under 90 minutes of the best action movies of it's time. And it's nice to see Jason Statham not just be a costar and actually have a starring role. He really makes the most of it here.

Ok, start with the cast, which if you don't know the main one's, look them up. This is definitely an all-star cast. Then a simple yet smart & believable plot just makes it better. Spoiler alert here, a guy (Cage) fresh out of the armed forces is finally home again with his girl who happens to be pregnant with their first kid. While at a bar (maybe roadhouse or big truck stop, something of that sort, kinda hard to distinguish between them sometimes) Cage's character gets into a brawl. He honestly legitimately tries everything to avoid it inside, but the other guy is drunk and just not letting Cage go without a fight. The guy pulls a knife on Cage and Cage turns it back on him, ultimately killing him. Fast-forward a little bit. Cage's trial and sentence I'll skip even though they touch on it in the movie. Moreover and to the point he gets a prison sentence and until the action picks up again we see him writing letters to his girl and keeping up with his daughter as she was born just after he got locked up. There's his motive and incentive to keep right and get out ASAP: to finally see his daughter in person for the first time. Bonus, his release date just happens to be on her birthday. So the stage is set for his motives. But for him it's not as simple as being just let out at the end of his sentence, he has to be released from the jail he initially was booked into. Which means he has to fly back there. Enter now the title of this movie: Con Air. Naturally it doesn't start that way, the plane is cleverly hijacked by the other prisoners who are being transported to a new super max prison facility. Most of them are in for life sentences. They have nothing to lose and see this as they're one and possibly only chance at escape. So they plan the hijacking of the plane well. Success! While a few hiccups occur for the prisoners during the hijacking of the plane they still ultimately manage to take the plane. But wait, Cage is a free man. Meaning he's also playing a double roll with them. On the one hand they believe him to be another prisoner, on the other hand he isn't as through his paperwork he is found out about by at least one other prisoner. Now he has to both convince as many as possible he's on their side still and survive against the one's who just don't care. There's more to it, but hell, haven't I spoiled enough? Besides, more than the gist of the movie is there. What's so brilliant and beautiful about this movie is that it's so many different genres wrapped up into one. Ok, it definitely ain't all of them and it definitely ain't a family or kids movie. But it's got a touch of a war angle, it's primarily an action movie, filled with drama at the predictable points, it's got off colored humor throughout, and it's got a bit of romance too, mainly at the beginning and end, but still. It just makes for a multifaceted movie having so much rolled up into one. Hell just watch it if you haven't yet.