Walking from the set of The Rock to do Con Air, quickly followed by Face/Off is what Nicolas Cage did in 1996.
This remains the greatest single year for any actor ever.
In terms of preposterous and bombastic 90s action movies, John Woo’s Face/Off is a tour de force.
It is everything you want it to be from scenery munching performances to excessive slow motion and gratuitous use of doves. It’s ridiculous, and I love it.
Con Air is one of the most quotable films of the era, and has an unbelievable cast for an action film, but as we are about to see, that is one of the reasons why The Rock is the perfect example of what an action film should be.
Why The Rock Stands Out
Before we drill down into what specifically makes The Rock one of my favourite action films ever, I think it’s right to step back and look holistically at the overall magnificence of it.
It ticks every box:
- A Simpson/Bruckheimer production (although the utterly majestic yet morally questionable, cocaine abusing, machine gun toting Simpson passed before production began),
- A Michael Bay film, before he started leaning on CG and making his films 45 mins too long, and crucially:
- It had what separates good films from bad- a cast of world class leading men, movie stars and some of the greatest character-actors of all time.
Even the uncredited actors are great. And everyone knows what they are involved in and plays it accordingly.
So where to start in an analysis of this masterpiece? The beginning, of course.
The Perfect Casting Begins
If I needed to cast someone as a gritty, betrayed by the country he loves, recently widowed, highly skilled and utterly relentlessly deadly General then the list would consist of only one name.
This film kicks off with its first bit of perfect casting when we see Ed Harris.
The McGuffin of The Rock is just the right side of complicated but understandably impactful, and it works from start to finish.
The motivation is clear and the solution to prevent it is clear.
I say this not to be needlessly obtuse but as a plea to present day filmmakers who seem intent on over complicating everything just for the sake of it.
The Rock is glorious in its simplicity.
I’m Stanley Goodspeed
Enter the fly in the ointment in the form of our brilliantly named hero Stanley Goodspeed, who’s exposition laden intro in the form of a properly tense set piece again does exactly what is required.
Cage is perfect and he knows it, hamming it up one second and being super serious and earnest the next, a role that in lesser hands would be grating and insincere.
He has the obligatory impossibly beautiful girlfriend and a few quirks thrown in to flesh things out then, once again, we are good to go.
Mason, Alcatraz, and the Plot Unfolds
Then we get to the introduction of the incomparable Sean Connery.
His John Mason is of course ex SAS and therefor a worthy adversary for our “bad guy”, they get to work and now we get to the point.
Ed Harris and his guys take over Alcatraz, Connery was once a prisoner in same, so it’s off to The Rock we go, Cage in tow to do his plot stuff and it all unfolds beautifully.
There is never a point from about ten minutes into the film that you don’t know what’s going to happen, but that really doesn’t matter when the execution is this good.
The script is acceptably cheesy without becoming uncomfortable. The action is brilliant, but Bay is as safe a pair of hand as you can get in the genre.
The set pieces are well choreographed and easy to follow and absolutely thrilling.
As a piece of action filmmaking it is pretty much perfect.
The Cast That Elevates It All
But this film soars because of the cast.
The stars are comfortably brilliant, you feel safe when they are on screen and they are perfectly cast for their respective roles.
It’s when you get down the cast list that things become really interesting.
It’s seems a bit redundant to simply list the supporting cast and I’ll get to the highlights shortly, but I’ve always argued that if you want to elevate your action filmmaking from a bit silly to pretty epic than fill the minor roles with killers, proper world class character actors.
As you watch this you can’t help but go “hey, it’s that guy from that thing” every time a new character is introduced, and there’s too many to name them all here.
So honourable mentions have to go to Michael Biehn, David Morse, John Spencer, Tony Todd and the ultimate go to guy, John C McGinley.
Greats like Stuart Wilson and Philip Baker Hall aren’t even credited, such is the breadth and depth of this bench.
It lends credibility to the entire enterprise and it’s what sets this film apart. It shows that the film is a serious project without taking itself too seriously.
Having such a murderers row of supporting talent allows the leads to have fun and Bay to let rip. Which he does in his own inimitable way.
A Golden Age of Cage
The satisfactory conclusion to the main action and the humorous button that wraps it all up leave us feeling elated and exhausted.
This film never over reaches, it doesn’t pretend or have ideas above its station.
Harris is menacing, Connery is, well, Connery and Cage kicks off one of the greatest three film streaks in history and cements himself as a proper leading man.
Cage is a big part of the reason “90s action films” has become a classic genre, a golden age to be sure, and this film was his foot in the door.
I love this movie, I love everything about it.
It does what movies are supposed to do and it doesn’t care that you know it.
