空中监狱Con Air (1997)英文影评

The thrill ride genre is a study in shorthand. ''Con Air'': convicts on an airplane. (''Do the math,'' as one character inevitably says about something nonmathematical, using the season's best-loved cliche.) Cameron Poe: he's our hero. Here's what we know about Cameron (Nicolas Cage, looking fabulous): he loves his family. He protects women. He sounds like Elvis. There are Christ-like overtones to his hair weave. He makes origami birds in his jail cell. He must be a really nice guy.

Another kind of movie might fill in a few blanks, but the thrill ride needn't bother. It has too much else to do: staging an air war over Monument Valley, sending Cameron fleeing fireballs in slow motion, breaking lots of breakaway glass, finding interesting new forms of demolition. (Ever see a plane crash into a Las Vegas casino? Now you can.) The thrill ride also has its own brand of sight gag, as when a corpse falls from an airplane and causes a comical traffic accident. And one of the drivers had just washed his car!

Thrill rides don't often make more sense than beer commercials, which they stylistically resemble by insisting that every frame look slick and pack a visual wallop. (When Cameron kills a man on a rainy night while defending his wife, there's an oil rig pumping in the background: nice kinetic touch.) But some are better than others. The colorfully written ''Con Air'' is a solid chip off ''The Rock,'' pumped up and very well cast, with the prettiness and polish of advertising art. (Once again the director made his mark in television commercials before moving on to feature filmmaking with this big bang.) Jerry Bruckheimer, producing solo after the death of his partner, Don Simpson, long ago melded the action movie with rock videos and comic strips, and he still knows how to make this formula fly.

Beyond the distinction of being the only summer blockbuster with a quotation from Dostoyevsky in its trailer, ''Con Air'' has an important secret weapon: an indie cast. All of the principals normally work in films more interesting and human than this one, which gives ''Con Air'' a touch of the subversive and turns it into a big-budget lark.

Imaginative actors like John Cusack (''Grosse Pointe Blank''), Steve Buscemi (''Trees Lounge''), Ving Rhames (''Pulp Fiction''), Colm Meaney (''The Van'') and John Malkovich (anything with a hissing, unctuous villain) show off entertaining quirks even when playing characters who aren't much more than tattoos and nicknames. As for Mr. Cage, he neatly embodies the noble hero while winking literally and figuratively through this role, and his charismatic performance gives the film the center it urgently needs. He also moves athletically through the story's increasingly far-fetched turns. Production notes mention that he reduced his body fat to 3 percent during filming, and the camera often finds ways to admire his muscle tone.

As directed by Simon West and written wryly by Scott Rosenberg (''Beautiful Girls''), ''Con Air'' is a simple setup followed by endless stunts. Having killed a man, served his time and corresponded busily with his daughter before the end of the opening credits (a speedy montage in virtual sign language), Cameron is ready to go home. Unfortunately, he is shipped off with a planeload of evil miscreants who have hijacking in mind. The baddies are led by Cyrus the Virus (Mr. Malkovich), whose sense of irony is shared by Garland Greene (Mr. Buscemi), a serial killer in the Hannibal Lecter mode. ''Love your work,'' Cyrus whispers when these two first meet.

Conveniently on board the plane are a diabetic who needs his insulin (Mykelti Williamson of ''Forrest Gump''), a female guard (Rachel Ticotin), a leering rapist (Danny Trejo), a stereotypically swishy transvestite (Renoly), a onetime black militant (Mr. Rhames) and enough others to round out a dirty dozen and keep crises on tap. On the ground, worriedly tracking the criminals and cracking their mysterious jail house code in about three seconds, are the straight-arrow Mr. Cusack and Mr. Meaney.

And in secret, revealed only to the scores of millions of people who will see ''Con Air'' all over the globe, is Cameron Poe's better nature. Fooling the tough cons into thinking he's as evil as they are, Cameron is actually a white knight determined to bring his daughter a stuffed bunny. The film is sly enough to turn the bunny into a totem and to make Mr. Buscemi's serial killer susceptible to a pigtailed, hymn-singing schoolgirl. It wants to justify the empty excitement of a thrill-ride scenario by treating it with a touch of sardonic detachment. Maybe we do, too.
 

''Con Air'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes profanity, much mayhem and a few predictably brutal touches. There isn't much on-screen gore.

CON AIR

Directed by Simon West; written by Scott Rosenberg; director of photography, David Tattersall; edited by Chris Lebenzon, Steve Mirkovich and Glen Scantlebury; music by Mark Mancina and Trevor Rabin; produced by Jerry Bruckheimer; released by Touchstone Pictures. Running time: 115 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Nicolas Cage (Cameron Poe), John Cusack (Larkin), John Malkovich (Cyrus the Virus), Steve Buscemi (Garland Greene), Rachel Ticotin (Bishop), Colm Meaney (Malloy), Ving Rhames (Diamond Dog), Mykelti Williamson (Baby-O), Renoly (Sally Can't Dance) and Danny Trejo (Johnny 23).

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