History YMMV / ConAir

* AwesomeMusic: A lush orchestra conducted by Mark Mancina, accompanied by synthesizer sounds and Trevor Rabin's soaring guitar lines is bound to make any viewer feel powerful.

* CatharsisFactor: The scene where Cameron Poe beats the ''Begeezus'' out of Johnny-23 for trying to rape Guard Bishop practically ''yells'' at the audience to cheer each time he '''rams''' the bastard's head into the Jailbird's steel bulkhead.

** [[FreezeFrameBonus It's very brief,]] but as the prisoner plane takes off from Lerner Field, the "Jailbird" nose art is reversed. Apparently they filmed the other side of the plane, and flipped the film.

* HilariousInHindsight: A movie titled ''Con Air'' that features two characters named ''Sally''. The latter is a well-known beauty supply chain known for carrying blow dryers and other items under the brand name of the former.

* CompleteMonster: "[[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil Johnny 23]]", real name John Baca, is the slimiest, vilest member of the cons that [[BigBad Cyrus "the Virus" Grissom]] breaks out to take over the ''Jailbird''. A SerialRapist who takes his name from the number of victims he's attained, Johnny boasts "they'd call me Johnny ''600''" if they knew the true depth of his depravity, and proves he's pure evil by twice attempting to rape the one female guard on the plane. [[PariahPrisoner Even his fellow murderers give Johnny 23 a wide berth]], with Cyrus proclaiming he'll [[EvenEvilHasStandards kill Johnny should he attempt anything perverse toward the hostages]].

* AcceptableTargets: The US Drug Enforcement Agency. See the exchange between Agent Sims and Pinball in the Quotes section.

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Something is obviously '''''very''''' wrong with Garland Greene, a.k.a. [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Marietta Mangler]], given his criminal record and the way he behaves, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly what that something (or some''things'') is. Most serial killers are TheSociopath by nature, but Garland's charm and friendliness appear to be genuine, he admits to his own sickness, and he never really seems to manipulate anyone, [[spoiler:and by the end of the story he appears to have decided to change his ways.]]

* ClicheStorm: This is best described as [[DieHardOnAnX "Die Hard" in a plane]], which felt old-fashioned even for the time after films like ''Film/Passenger57'' already came out. On the bright side, the movie is not taking itself too seriously.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: [[spoiler:Pinball's corpse]] is very obviously a dummy. That said, the shot of it [[spoiler:falling from the plane]] is oddly elegant.

* IdiotPlot: The only reason Poe is aboard this flight is because he was sentenced to ten years in prison for having killed a violent drunk out of ''self-defense''; specifically, the defense of his pregnant wife. In any court of law, such an act would not be considered an act of murder, no matter how thoroughly Poe outclassed his opponent.
** The victim's friends took the knife he pulled. Then it just seemed like a regular drunken bar fight.
** Even if they got rid of the knife, there's the fact that ''the wife herself'' could testify in his defense, given that she saw several men ganging up on him. Also, the victim wouldn't need a knife to justify Poe's self-defense; any kind of extreme physical aggression can be considered a life-threatening action in many states
*** Not just his wife, either. The VERY full oyster bar can testify to the fact that these gentlemen were harassing Tricia and Cameron inside the bar, including the logical conclusion that they've done it before (Tricia, on the guy starting in on Cameron the first time, refers to the man who dies as a regular, so that probably wasn't his first night acting like a horny asshole). With verbal and physical aggression having been performed inside the bar, it would be very hard to scupper an assertion that the same men had started the conflict outside.
*** I've heard his conviction justified by the fact that his attorney is a public defender who didn't care much about the truth. But, Poe has just left the United States Army, which would have moved him to the Reserves for a specific time period. Between those two factors, the U.S. Army's JAG Corps would have offered no-doubt excellent assistance to the public defender (if not finding an active duty or reserve JAG lawyer licensed in the State of Alabama to represent him). That's also ignoring that the incident took place in Alabama, so there's not a huge amount of likelihood that Poe would have been anything but a sympathetic defendant and might have avoided indictment entirely.
** To say nothing of the main conflict of the movie. Hey, let's take all of the most notorious murderers in prison and put them on an airplane, just sitting with each other like regular passengers with minimal security (except our Hannibal knock-off), with a guard who goes out of his way to insult and torment them, and hey, while we're at it, let's put an attractive female cop on duty aboard that plane too. What could possibly go wrong?

*** Not just his wife, either. The VERY full oyster bar can testify to the fact that these gentlemen were harassing Tricia and Cameron inside the bar, including the logical conclusion that they've done it before (Tricia, on the guy starting in on Cameron the first time, refers to the man who dies as a regular. Somehow I doubt he was only a horny asshole that one night!). With verbal and physical aggression having been performed inside the bar, it would be very hard to scupper an assertion that the same men had started the conflict outside.