Con Air

Touchstone Pictures
Director: Simon West
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer
Executive Producers: Chad Oman, Jonathan Hensleigh, Peter Bogart, Jim Kouf, Lynn Bigelow
Screenwriter: Scott Rosenberg
Director of Photography: David Tattersall

Cast: Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Nick Chinlund, Rachel Ticotin, Colm Meaney, M.C. Gainey, Ving Rhames, Brendan Kelly, Mykelti Williamson, Monica Potter

QUICK REVIEW: Sheesh! What a ride! This is sort of THE ROCK plus two. Once again, you have some interesting characters inside an action drama -- with Nicolas Cage as the eccentric, charismatic focal point, and good character actors like John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames serving as the foils (much as the commanding Sean Connery did in the earlier Bruckheimer film). The pacing is good; the plot is thin. What makes it worth watching is what Cage added to the script to flesh out his character into one of his offbeat heroes and the touches that old pros like Malkovich and Buscemi bring to evil types. John Cusack does a fine job as the nice guy on the ground, but that character also needed some moments of levity to take off the stereotype curse. Forget about the action and enjoy the acting.

Rating (on a four-star scale):