Few actors have had such polarized reviews as Nicholas Cage, whether he later became known as the "box office poison" or the "king of bad films", and we have to admit that the early Cage had many classics, and "Con Air" was the most successful representative of them.
Cage plays an Army Ranger who has just retired home, Cameron Bonn. He killed two hooligans to protect his pregnant wife and served his sentence in prison. Eight years later, Bonn's parole application was granted and he was finally reunited with his wife and daughter, but his prisoner transfer flight, the Prison Bird, was hijacked by a group of felons. In order to return to his family and save his friends in prison, Bonn had to deal with a large number of felons on a closed plane... The rhythm of the whole movie is very tight, and there is no urine point at all, so today I will take stock of some interesting stories behind this movie.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > realistic prototype</h1>
The film carries prisoners on the Flight "Prison Bird", which is based on the U.S. Department of Justice's "Prisoner and Alien Transfer System" (J-pats), which is used to provide "exclusive air service" for the vast U.S. prison system.
The J-pats, which own four Boeing 737s and a number of other small business jets (used to transfer extremely important criminals, such as Mexican drug lord Gustav), require the transfer of up to 260,000 felons each year. However, the "Prison Bird" modified from the C123 transport aircraft in the film does not exist in reality, and the US Department of Justice once considered using this leather durable and fuel-efficient transport aircraft, but it gave up because it was worried that the comfort of the transport aircraft would cause a series of human rights disputes.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > director is a rookie</h1>
What you may not know is that the film's director, Simon West, had never made a film before, and at most directed some commercials and popular music videos at the time. No one knows how this fledgling rookie led a bunch of Hollywood "old guns" to soak in the Utah desert for three months to produce such a shocking movie.
What's even more amazing is that Simon West suddenly stopped after directing this "Prison in the Air", and the subsequent works were not salty, and there was no light of the first one.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-center-line" > old cannon actor</h1>
One of the classic scenes in the film is the American marshal played by John Cusack, who introduces the felons who will be transported by the Prison Bird one by one, many of these "prisoners" are old guns who have really squatted in prison.
For example, "Diamond Dog" Nathan Jones is played by Vin Rams and "Johnny 23" is played by Danny Trejo.
Originally, the role of "Virus" Cylos Gerson was given to Gary Oldman, but Oldman had previously taken on the villain role of two important movies ("The Fifth Element" and "Air Force One"), and really did not want to play the villain, the role of "Virus" was handed over to John Malkovich, I did not expect the effect to be surprisingly good, it can be called one of the classic villains in film history.
The main actors of this film did not originally consider that Nicholas Cage, Keanu Levi and Tom Cruise were all priority objects (the director was born in MV, and naturally had certain requirements for the appearance of the actors). Cage "went through the back door" to enter the group because he had worked with Jerry Brockheimer, the film's executive producer, on "Daredevil Island". However, Cage did work hard after entering the group, in addition to picking up the iron every day, he also hired retired former Ranger members at his own expense to guide his tactical actions (Cage is really serious, but his biggest problem is that sometimes he is not so serious).
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > baby rabbit</h1>
Cameron Bonn never saw his daughter in prison, and he didn't want her to see her father serving his sentence, so his thoughts about his wife and daughter were all pinned on a plush toy for a baby rabbit.
In fact, there is no bridge section about baby rabbits in the original script, this scene was added by Nicholas Cage, who believed that in the middle of a group of big old men and women there should be an "anchor" that represents the softest part of the human heart. The director felt that this was indeed a good suggestion, and readily agreed. So there is the famous line, "Put the baby bunny down to Lao Tzu", can say a stuffed toy so fiercely, I am afraid that only Cage.
< h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > music</h1>
Everyone suggested that director Simon West use hardercore rock tunes as the soundtrack to the film, such as "AC/DC" or "Metallica", but Simon did the opposite, using a lot of country music like "Sweet Home Alabama" and, of course, the famous "How Do I Live".
Simon West applied his ability to make music videos to this film, and a series of soundtrack slow-motion shots took the term "iron man tenderness" to the extreme, but the next director to do so was Michael Bay, but...
"How Do I Live" was originally sung by Leann Lymes, and since she was only 14 years old at the time of the film's production, the producers may have felt that the song of a flower girl was really inappropriate in such a violent criminal film, so they temporarily replaced a more mature singer to perform the song. And "Prison in the Air" also won the Oscar nomination for Best Film Score with this song, but lost to "Titanic", you know, no one could do that movie that year.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > Sands</h1>
The climax of the film is the crash of the Prison Bird in downtown Las Vegas. In fact, the scene where the plane finally crashes into the Sands Hotel is not a special effects or model shooting, but a real reality. That's right, the crew really used an airplane to scare a building for this shot.
The original script was to let the "Prison Bird" crash in front of the White House lawn, but because "Independence Day" in 96 simply blew up the White House, the producers thought that this gimmick had already made people preemptive, so they had to change the crash location to the same famous American landmark, Las Vegas.
The crew learned that the Sands Hotel was planning to demolish its own pre-function area and renovate it, which they saw as a perfect opportunity, and then they discussed with the hotel owners whether they could "jointly demolish" the lobby of the famous hotel. Considering the possible publicity effect of the film, the hotel actually agreed to their request, and later the producer also quoted this gimmick in the promotion of the film, "Everyone can only blow up the model, but we blow up the real building."
#Original##Classic Action Movie ##空中监狱 #