{"id":4615,"date":"1997-06-29T18:40:54","date_gmt":"1997-06-30T01:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=4615"},"modified":"2013-01-11T18:56:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-12T02:56:17","slug":"review-con-air-dir-simon-west-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/1997\/06\/review-con-air-dir-simon-west-1997.html","title":{"rendered":"Review: Con Air<\/i> (dir. Simon West, 1997)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Anyone who still thinks Hollywood doesn\u2019t care about the family hasn\u2019t been going to the movies lately. The big-budget blockbusters this summer are about little else, and even religion\u2019s been getting a reprieve.<\/p>\n

The Lost World: Jurassic Park<\/i> demonstrates that dinosaurs can be the most loving parents of all. Speed 2: Cruise Control<\/i> trades in the original film\u2019s punchline \u2014 in which two strangers spoke of basing their relationship on sex \u2014 for a marriage proposal and talk of raising children.<\/p>\n

Batman, once a brooding loner, spends most of Batman & Robin<\/i> building a superhero \u201cfamily\u201d for himself; and, while the single, sexually aggressive Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) may be unforgivably evil, her married partner in crime Mister Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is treated with surprising sympathy.<\/p>\n

But Con Air<\/i> does them all one better. Not only is the hero, Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage), defined by his relationship with his pretty, blonde wife and pretty, blonde daughter (he\u2019s in prison because he accidentally killed a man while defending them), he\u2019s also a testosterone-pumped hero of faith in an action flick with a surprisingly high quotient of religious references.<\/p>\n

Consider Poe\u2019s longish hair and stubbly chin, which give him, in the words of one critic, a \u201cChrist-gone-Rambo\u201d look, as opposed to the diabolical bald-with-goatee villain Cyrus \u2018The Virus\u2019 Grissom (John Malkovich).<\/p>\n

Consider the pregnant phrases Poe utters (\u201cThere\u2019s only two men I trust, and one of them\u2019s me\u201d). Consider the picture of Jesus hanging in his prison cell. And especially<\/i> consider his declaration to a wounded friend who questions God\u2019s existence: \u201cI will show you that God does<\/i> exist!\u201d And, with that, Poe proceeds to save the day.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s not forget Garland \u2018The Marietta Mangler\u2019 Greene (Steve Buscemi); he\u2019s supposed to be the worst psychopath of all, yet he\u2019s apparently redeemed when a little girl lets him play with her dolls and gets him to sing \u201cHe\u2019s got the whole world in his hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moral reformers from Ted Baehr to Michael Medved have long argued that, if Hollywood studios were only nicer to religion and the family, movies would make more money. Tinseltown apparently believes them: with budgets soaring to $100 million per film and beyond, studio heads are playing it safe and peppering their scripts with just enough warm, cuddly, domestic fuzzies to help their movies sell.<\/p>\n

But the vision they offer is trite and unconvincing. Complex, thorny relationships are reduced to simplistic equations: save your noncommittal girlfriend from a crashing boat and she\u2019ll marry you; save your doubting friend from a crashing plane and he\u2019ll believe in God. Instead of films that wrestle with issues of love and faith, we get a spirituality as hollow and plastic as the Barbie doll in Greene\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

Christians may be winning the game of cultural representation, but we\u2019re still a long way off from redeeming the culture itself.<\/p>\n

\u2014 A version of this review first appeared in <\/i>BC Christian News.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who still thinks Hollywood doesn\u2019t care about the family hasn\u2019t been going to the movies lately. The big-budget blockbusters this summer are about little else, and even religion\u2019s been getting a reprieve. The Lost World: Jurassic Park demonstrates that dinosaurs can be the most loving parents of all. Speed 2: Cruise Control trades in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[398,396,394,400,399,397,401],"class_list":["post-4615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bcchristiannews","tag-batman-robin","tag-con-air","tag-lost-world-jurassic-park","tag-michael-medved","tag-simon-west","tag-speed-2-cruise-control","tag-ted-baehr"],"yoast_head":"\nReview: Con Air (dir. 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