"Put the bunny back in the box." Sound advice if you want to live through this movie. "Put the movie back on the shelf" is sounder advice if you want an enjoyable evening of movie fare. Nicholas Cage started his career as a fine character actor in such films as Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona and Moonstruck, but then he went and won an Oscar. What did he do with his enlarged fame and Hollywood clout? He made three bad movies in a row: The Rock, Con Air and Face/Off. Con Air falls in the middle of this triumvirate of bad films, and in my mind, is the worst.

The movie starts with Cage's character, US Army Ranger Cameron Poe, heading back home to his expecting wife after a tour of duty. What kind of romantic evening lies in wait for the newly reunited couple? Dinner for two? A weekend getaway? Just snuggling on the couch? Why would you do that when you could simply meet her at the dive bar she works in while she's still mid-shift? Drinks and townies are flowing freely and it doesn't take long before a few of them pick a fight. Poe deftly defeats all three of them with his super Ranger training, but when one of them pulls a switchblade (A switchblade! Perfect!), Poe has no choice but to shove the man's nose up into his brain. Being that he's essentially a lethal weapon, he is given a sentence of seven to ten years.

How does he spend this time? Very wisely as can be attested to by the voice-over sequence that follows; a voice-over that calls attention to a truly sub-par southern accent. He spends his time learning to speak Spanish, perfecting origami, and growing the worst long hair since Michael Bolton. In case you wondered, having a dramatic receding hairline and growing a mullet is not a good combination. But good times lie on the horizon; he's on the eve of being paroled just in time for his birthday which also happens to be the birthday of the daughter he's never seen. What could possibly go wrong? It's like being a police Detective taking a call on his last day.

Seems good old Cameron needs to make one last trip before he can see his beloved family again, and this trip is on a plane with a who's who of depraved criminals. The casting director attempts to give us a stunning array of baddies, but Christopher Watkin and Dennis Hopper must have been busy. We are left with John Malkovich (Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom), Ving Rhames (Nathan 'Diamond Dog' Jones) and Dave Chappelle (Joe 'Pinball' Parker). Don't recognize the other baddies? No worries. Like a Star Trek trip down to a planet with a few crew members you've never seen before, they won't be around for long.

Poe is given several chances for getting off the plane, but he's just too damn noble. He's got double duty trying to save Guard Sally Bishop (Rachel Ticotin) from getting raped, and trying to find insulin for fellow inmate Mike 'Baby-O' O'Dell (played by Mykelti Williamson, he of Bubba fame from Forest Gump.) Normally this is the time a great portrayer of villains such as Malkovich would take over and entertain us for a while, but alas, he's not even terribly clever.

Nor is the movie. The plane has to make another stop to pick up more baddies (we just killed off too damn many, too damn fast, and we're in danger of killing off the important ones), where we meet the only enjoyable character in the movie; Garland 'The Marietta Mangler' Greene, played by Steve Buscemi. As you may have noted, even their sobriquets are lame. Garland also threatens to be lame as he shows up in a get-up that leaves no doubt that he's supposed to be Hannibal Lector. In a shameless bit of movie script rip-off, Cyrus actually tells Garland, "Love your work." But Buscemi has his moments, his most clever one being uttered once they are again mid-flight and celebrating to the stylings of Lynard Skynard, "Define irony; a bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash."

All of this leads nowhere, and we're left with no doubt as to the outcome of the film, it's just a matter of how much stuff they can blow up before that time. Oh yeah, and it wouldn't be a Bruckheimer film unless someone dove through a piece of glass with a gun, narrowly avoiding a fireball. Nor would it be a Bruckheimer film unless it had some lame ending. Our rag-tag crew of ruffians has to make an emergency landing on the Vegas strip where miraculously no one is killed (which is amazing considering that my confirmed death count for this film sits at thirty), and after much confusion, Cyrus and a couple of his ruffians make their escape on a fire truck and head into a tunnel with Cameron giving chase. Can anyone say climax to Mission Impossible? Cyrus finally meets his demise not by having his body crash into a restaurant which abides in an overpass, not by falling though electrical wires, nor by his subsequent fall to the street. No he has his head smashed by a rock crusher which conveniently happens to be in the area.

Ultimately this is not even bad enough to make a good view for BMK. Not enough enjoyable characters, not enough enjoyable dialogue and not a single breast. Buscemi and Chappelle bring this film up to two Hamlins.

Hamlin Grade: 2

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