"They somehow managed to get every freak and creep in the universe on this one plane, and then somehow managed to let them take it over, and then they somehow managed to stick us right smack in the middle."
—Cameron Poe, summarizing the movie for us.
Con Air is an action movie made in 1997, released by Touchstone Pictures and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.Army Ranger Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) loves his wife, Tricia Poe (Monica Potter). Just ask the drunk he killed in the course of defending her when she was pregnant, earning him seven to ten years in prison. He loves his daughter Casey (Landry Allbright), too, taking time every day in prison to communicate with both of them and making sure that he leaves prison a better man than he entered. Cameron Poe is now on parole, and on his way home to see his family. It will be his daughter's seventh birthday.Cameron Poe is a nice guy. Just don't threaten his family. And especially don't try to keep him from them.Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich) is about to learn this. He doesn't know Poe from Adam, but he is about to hijack the prisoner transport plane that is going to take Poe home to see his family. He is about to learn two very hard lessons...Don't mess with Cameron Poe.And never, everthreaten the bunny◊.Not to be confused with the Conair Corporation, which primarily sells hair care appliances.The characters sheet.
And Your Little Dog Too: "Before I kill you, I'll let you know that the last thing that little Casey Poe will ever smell will be my stinking breath." Oh, it's on...
Poe: "You're not getting near my daughter. Buckle up!" (cuffs Cyrus just as the truck they're riding crashes)
Apple of Discord: Poe attempts this when asking why a militant black man like Diamond Dog is taking orders from a skinhead white guy. It fails when Diamond Dog explicitly says he's The Starscream.
Author Tract: Malloy and Larkin spend a great deal of time arguing about the effectiveness of the American penal system.
As a footnote, Rimes' version did better on Adult Contemporary radio, while Yearwood's version did better on the country charts. Both lost the Oscar to "My Heart Will Go On".
Big Bad Duumvirate: Cyrus "The Virus" Grissum and Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones. Nathan is technically taking orders from Cyrus, but they both have equal authority and Nathan admits he is only doing so for the time being.
Blown Across the Room: Averted. Poe doesn't even blink when he takes a shot to the shoulder, let alone fly backwards.
Brick Joke: Garland Greene is unaccounted for after the ending plane crash. We don't see any of him until right before the credits... when he turns out to have made an absolute fortune gambling in Vegas.
Bring My Brown Pants: Cyrus told Larkin (via radio) that the undercover agent pissed his pants after he shot him.
Cyrus (singing): "Ohhhh, nothing makes me sadder than the agent lost his bladder in the... aaaiiiirrrrrplane!"
Bullying a Dragon: Poe winds up in prison because three general lowlifes attack a soldier who is wearing Ranger tabs. The thought process there probably involved a tremendous amount of alcohol. Probably for the best.
Bury Your Gays: Subverted. Sally-Can't-Dance is one of the few survivors. He was however the first to get re-arrested.
Chekhov's Speech: When the cons skid to a halt at Lerner Airfield, Diamond Dog is about to execute three prison guards. Poe tries to reason with Diamond Dog not to kill them until the cons board the second plane with Cindino, the cons' contact at the airfield. Poe argues that Cindino may not be one to be trusted based on what Poe knows of Cindino's history. Diamond Dog is unconvinced until Cyrus interrupts the exchange. Poe tries the same argument with Cyrus and convinces him. Cyrus orders Diamond Dog to stand down and for the cons to dig and pull their plane out from the dirt. Its relevance to the story seems minimal until it turns out that Poe was right; Cindino planned to double-cross the cons all along. This scene was clever in hindsight because Poe was simply trying to save the guards' lives, and may have actually made up his Cindino story in an attempt to break the partnership, and thus prevent the cons from escaping to Mexico before the authorities show up.
Contrived Coincidence: Lampshaded in the page quote. Cameron Poe gets released from prison on his daughter's birthday, only to wind up on a plane hijacked by inmates, and is forced to stop them because his Black Best Friend is trapped on the plane will die if he doesn't get off and receive insulin. Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg...
Cyrus dies by being chained to the ladder of a speeding fire engine, hurled through a bridge and onto some electrical wires, and finally getting his head crushed in a rock crusher.
Johnny 23 dies (or so we must assume) when one or both of his handcuffed arms are torn from the rest of his body. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Garland Greene was particularly fond of these, bragging about sawing a woman's head off and wearing it as a hat for days.
Dangerously Genre Savvy: Cryus has a moment of this. His Politically Incorrect Villain line about Pinball is said while the DEA agent on the plane is using him as a Human Shield. Once the situation is resolved, to the detriment of the agent, Pinball retrieves the agent's gun and asks if Cyrus meant it. Cyrus has Pinball relinquish the gun, then confirms that he did.
Description Porn: Larkin describes Billy Bedlam, Diamond Dog and Cyrus the Virus but skimps when it comes to Poe.
Disproportionate Retribution: Paraphrased from the movie: Billy Bedlam caught his wife in bed with another man. He left them alone, but drove four towns over to his wife's family's house. He proceedeed to kil her parents, her brothers, her sisters, and even her dog.
Dissonant Serenity: Garland Greene, though he might actually be on anti-psychotics at the time.
Distracted by the Sexy: Pinball meets a cute girl while stashing the transponder and forgets to get back on the plane.
Empathy Doll Shot: The doll of the little girl that Garland talks to.
Cyrus: "You keep that in mind when you look at her, because if your dick jumps out of your pants, you jump out of this plane."
Diamond Dog is scared out of his mind by Garland Greene and doesn't like having to be the one to release him from his restraints.
Fakeout Opening: The film begins with a montage about the US Army Rangers.
Freudian Slip: Pinball meets a pretty girl, and pretends to be a prison guard.
Pinball: "I work for the Department of Erec... Corrections".
Good News, Bad News: Pinball has to find three white convicts named Carl, Benson, and Popovich, because they need to deliver them to the unsuspecting guards below to keep up the ruse that nothing is wrong on the plane. The goods news is that Pinball found all three of them. The bad news is that they all died in the scuffle in taking over the plane and the DEA Agent's attempt to retake it, making them three men short.
Hollywood Law: This was a very clear case of self defense, and the judge's reasoning of Poe being a "human weapon" for throwing the book at him despite a guilty plea should've been laughed out of an appeals court. But that would've ruined the film, now, wouldn't it?
Honor Before Reason: Cameron Poe is a former Army Ranger, and refuses to leave a fallen man behind and a female prison guard to be raped and tortured by Johnny 23, even if keeping quiet would mean freedom.
Informed Attribute: Garland Greene had supposedly killed more people than any convict on the plane, and had the absolute highest amount of security for transporting him. However, whilst he definitely alludes to having formerly killed people, we never really see any of his murderous aspects on-screen, to the point where it looks like he just might have been cured of them. It's still implied that he murdered one of the guards, and that doing so made him "feel better".
Inspector Javert: Malloy has trouble believing Poe (or any convict) is good.
Idiot Ball: The pilot of the plane, learning that there was a fire and a probable disturbance on his plane, does the right thing and trips the alarm and alerts Carson City (their next stop) of a problem on board. What does he do next? Instead of locking the cockpit door where they would be safe (the inmates were extensively searched for any and all weapons) and landing ASAP, the pilot tells the co-pilot to get a gun and check it out. One wonders how Cyrus's ingenious escape plan would have fared without this error in judgment.
Infant Immortality: Played straight. It seems like Garland Greene, who is tauted as a horrific serial killer, is about to kill the little girl he runs into near the abandoned airfield, but he doesn't.
Irony: As the inmates dance to "Sweet Home Alabama", Garland Greene defines irony as "a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash."
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He admits in the end that shooting down the plane would have been a bad idea.
Karma Houdini: Garland Greene, though all his villainy is in his backstory. During the movie Garland instinctively realizes Poe is a good guy pretending to be a hard con, and has a lengthy dialogue about ironic situations about how a good man has to act evil to survive. The fact that Garland intentionally leaves a little girl alive during the plane refueling hints that by the end of the movie Garland has decided to act good.
When his dead body is found, Johnny 23's tattooed arm is detached from his body, but still shackled in his cage.
As Pinball tries to get the plane to stop so he can get on, the only prisoner to see him is the Native American whom he picked on and set on fire. Naturally, he doesn't tell anyone what he saw, indirectly causing Pinball's death.
Politically Incorrect Hero: The prison guard in charge of transporting the prisoners calls Pinball "the skinniest Negro I have ever seen".
Politically Incorrect Villain: Cyrus the Virus says a lot of racist comments toward Pinball and Baby-O. There's also Diamond Dog, a black supremacist who believes that all white people are inherently evil. However, both of them are still pragmatic enough to team up with each other.
Cyrus: "I despise rapists. For me, you're somewhere between a cockroach and that white stuff that accumulates at the corner of your mouth when you're really thirsty. But, in your case, I'll make an exception."
And when he actually does try something with the female police officer on board and Cameron Poe gets hold of him, well...see Punctuated Pounding above.
Rasputinian Death: The ultimate fate of Cyrus the Virus. Wait - I think he just twitched...
Refuge in Audacity: Lampshaded by Poe when the airplane tows a car through the air. "On any other day, that might seem strange." For unknown reasons this was changed in the german version to "Funny, that's exactly my type of car." Still fits, but makes one wonder why they changed it?
Scary Black Man: Diamond Dog. He's a Malcolm Xerox without the glasses or the soapbox. Strangely, he's one of the most well-spoken characters in the entire movie, and wrote a best-selling book. And was interviewed by Geraldo. And there was talk in-story about a movie being made about him, with "Denzel" being cast to play him.
Schmuck Bait: The cops are investigating the stuff Cyrus left behind his cell wall planning out the plane hijacking. Vince leaves the cell, and tells the guards not to touch anything. They see that one of the boxes is marked "Do Not Open". The bomb inside it explodes when they open it.
Larkin: [Cindino's] known to be somewhat garrulous in the company of thieves. Malloy: Garrulous? What the fuck is garrulous? Larkin: That would be loquacious, verbose, effusive. How about "chatty"? Malloy: [to Devers] What's with Dictionary Boy? Larkin: "Thesaurus Boy", I think, is more appropriate.
Soundtrack Dissonance: Pinball falls off the plane to the tune of "A Summer Place". Also Garland Greene singing "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" while the plane crashes.
The Starscream: Diamond Dog admits he is one of these to Poe, saying he'll go along with Cyrus and follow his orders until he doesn't need him anymore, and then "the Day of the Dog begins."
Malloy: "Of course you can't reach [Larkin]! He's probably off saving the rainforests, or recycling his sandals or some shit!"
Tempting Fate: It's discussed what a brilliant idea it was to put all of the most dangerous criminals in the country on the same plane. Larkin's assistant hopes nothing goes wrong. He replies that the plane is a well-oiled machine.
"All they'll have to worry about is stale peanuts and a little turbulence."
There Is a God: As the diabetic black guy is dying on the plane, he tells Nicholas Cage's character that sometimes he wonders if there's a God. Cage's characters tells him he'll show him there is one, and then starts kicking Con butt.
Throw It In: Dave Chappelle claims he made up most of Pinball's dialogue.
Cyrus: Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I have the only gun on board. Welcome to Con Air!
Too Dumb to Live: A pair of guards are left to watch over Cyrus's prison cell, with clear orders from Larkin not to touch anything in the hidden compartment they just uncovered. They proceed ignore him completely, opening a box with the words "DO NOT OPEN" written across the top. Boom.
Touch of Death: How Cameron Poe got in this mess in the first place.
Trans Equals Gay: Sally Can't Dance acts much more like a transwoman than a gay man, but is treated as such by the rest of the cast and apparently the editors of this very wiki.
Played with. The cons are walking away from an burning plane, only to jump when it actually explodes... except, of course, Cyrus. Poe was a bit closer to the plane, so he has to Outrun the Fireball at the same time.
Poe walks towards a gun-toting con after the plane crashes and is on fire, taking a bullet in the shoulder without pausing.
Up to Eleven: Everyone's story, but especially Garland Greene. You can't just have a Hannibal-like psychopath, he has to have "driven through three states wearing a girl's head as a hat."
Video Credits: With everyone happy and laughing with "Sweet Home Alabama" as BGM.
Villainous Breakdown: Cyrus, usually very composed and in control, standing on the open ramp of the plane in flight, holding a pistol to the head of the bunny, yelling at an assault chopper.
Viva Las Vegas: Where the bad guys plan to land in, and where the plane crashes.
Wife-Basher Basher: Cameron Poe becomes one when he catches Johnny trying to rape a female guard. See Punctuated Pounding, wherein he slams the bastard's head repeatedly into a bulkhead while teaching him Chivalry 101.
Wouldn't Hit a Girl: During his Foe Tossing Charge, the last person on the line is Sally-Can't-Dance, who is - depending on your interpretation - either Camp Gay or a trans woman. Poe nearly punches him, hesitates, then slaps instead.
◊.Not to be confused with the Conair Corporation
, which primarily sells hair care appliances.The characters sheet.
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