Flipping channels early in the morning, I noticed the local CW affiliate graced us with a broadcast of that timeless classic, Con Air.
This movie represents everything wrong with filmmaking today.
Consider its trio of above-the-title stars: Nicholas Cage, John Cusack and John Malkovich. At the time of its release, it was still possible to wonder what the hell these guys were doing in a crappy movie like this. Sure, Cage was fresh off The Rock, his previous mind-numbing Jerry Bruckheimer extravaganza, but at the time, it was possible to think it was just a one-off. The guy'd recently won an Oscar, he'd worked with the Coen Brothers and David Lynch, surely he wasn't going to make a career out of this sort of thing.
Heh.
The same with Cusack and Malkovich. This was pre-Must Love Dogs Cusack, pre-Beowulf Malkovich, when their names still meant something. Sure, they'd done bad movies before this, but nothing extravagantly bad, not the types of things you'd know would be bad before signing on.
And let's face it, they all had to know going in how bad this would be. The title alone should have told them, or a casual perusal of the unbearably arch script, or the fact that director Simon West's most noteworthy previous credit was a Rick Astley video.
Mostly, of course, they knew it would be bad because Jerry Bruckheimer produced. Sure, Bruckheimer's movies have pushed many a star into the mega-star category. But at what price?
What if Eddie Murphy hadn't been in Beverly Hills Cop, what if Tom Cruise hadn't done Top Gun, if Ben Affleck had steered clear of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, if Johnny Depp had avoided the whole Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise? Mightn't their subsequent careers have been more interesting without the burden of superstardom? Was compels a man (and let's face it, with Bruckheimer it's always men...unless you count Coyote Ugly, and if I spent any time considering that, I'd never stop vomiting) to surrender their integrity and sign on with Bruckheimer?
Money, obviously, but it's not like any of these guys needed it. Their careers seemed just fine--Cusack had just finished the very fine Grosse Point Blank when he signed on for Con Air--but they craved something more. They wanted the Big Score, the Blockbuster.
Careful what you wish for.
