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Con Air

1997 • 1h 56m •
Action Thriller Crime
MOVIEVIBE Rating
★ 6.8/10
4,871 reviews
Your Rating
Con Air

Newly-paroled former US Army ranger Cameron Poe is headed back to his wife, but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed "Jailbird" taking the “worst of the worst” prisoners, a group described as “pure predators”, to a new super-prison. Poe faces impossible odds when the transport plane is skyjacked mid-flight by the most vicious criminals in the country led by the mastermind — genius serial killer Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, and backed by black militant Diamond Dog and psychopath Billy Bedlam.

"They were deadly on the ground. Now they have wings."

Top Billed Cast

Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Cameron Poe
John Cusack
John Cusack
Agent Vince Larkin
John Malkovich
John Malkovich
Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom
Ving Rhames
Ving Rhames
Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones
Mykelti Williamson
Mykelti Williamson
"Baby-O" O'Dell
Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle
"Pinball" Parker
Colm Meaney
Colm Meaney
Agent Duncan Malloy
Monica Potter
Monica Potter
Tricia Poe

Detailed Critic & Audience Reviews

D Dark Jedi Verified TMDB Critic
2014-08-24

This is one of those movies which are simply good solid entertainment. The fact that I do like Nicolas Cage, even though he is at times really lousy at choosing which movies he participate in, is of course an additional plus.

Naturally I do like the performance of Nicolas Cage in this movie but John Malkowich is also great as the main bad guy and Steve Buscemi is perfect as the nutcase although his role could have been a bit more expanded upon. The rest of the actors are doing nicely as well although it always saddens me to see Colm Meaney playing a dumbass and/or bad guy after his role in ...

J John Chard Verified TMDB Critic
2020-05-18

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I have the only gun on board. Welcome to Con Air.

Hummingbird Humdinger.

Con Air is directed by Simon West and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It stars Nicolas Cage, John Cusack and John Malkovich. Plot sees Cameron Poe (Cage), a parolee on his way home to his wife and daughter after serving years in prison for manslaughter. He's travelling on a plane full of the most dangerous criminals currently being held in America, they are being transferred to some new super prison. Inevitably something goes wrong and the cons take over the plane,...

A Andre Gonzales Verified TMDB Critic
2023-05-08

Great movie. One of my favorites growing up. Action packed with a great storyline. Great cast too....

C CinemaSerf Verified TMDB Critic
2023-08-27

This takes forever to get going, but once the plot gets the establishing twenty minutes out of the way, it's actually quite a decent adventure story. Ranger Nicolas Cage ("Poe") gets embroiled in a fatal brawl that lands him in jail. Out on his parole, he gets caught up in a highly sophisticated prison break planned by "Cyrus" (John Malkovich) - intent on hijacking their prison flight and executing a complicated onwards escape plan before the pursuing Colm Meaney ("Agent. Malloy") and an heavily armed squad of soldiers track them down. Luckily for Cage, and the authorities, John Cusack ("Agent...

H Horseface Verified TMDB Critic
2025-02-09

Silly perfection!

Having just watched this again after twenty-odd years, as it's now available in 4k. My god, Hollywood was great back in the day.

This movie is stupid, silly, over-the-top everything, and wholly implausible. But it doesn't matter. It's 100% honest wholesome fun, like an action comic for boys in men's bodies. It's got everything, and everything's like a love letter.

I want Criterion to add this to their collection and have some of their film historians create commentary tracks for it.

This movie is now in my top ten, and I'll watch at least ten times more.

10/10...