: redirects here. For the
Professional Wrestler who used this name see
Don Callis .''
'' (
1997 ) is an
Action /
Thriller Movie by
Touchstone Pictures , starring
Nicolas Cage ,
John Cusack ,
John Malkovich ,
Steve Buscemi ,
Colm Meaney ,
Ving Rhames ,
Rachel Ticotin ,
Monica Potter and
Renoly Santiago . It is
Directed by
Simon West .
The film was nominated for
Academy Awards for
Best Song and
Sound , losing to ''
Titanic '' in both categories.
The initial scene shows Cameron Poe (Cage), a former
US Army Ranger who was just honorably discharged, killing a man to defend his pregnant wife. He pleads guilty to
Manslaughter charges, but the judge gives him the maximum sentence of 7-10 years anyway due to his Ranger training making him a "lethal weapon". He is incarcerated before his daughter is born, and the opening credits involve his correspondence with his wife and daughter over the next seven years, with brief snippets of his life in
Prison (including a riot, which he does not participate in) and his friendship with fellow prisoner and eventual bunkmate, Mike "Baby-O" O'Dell.
The bulk of the movie is set seven years later, when he is about to be paroled (on his daughter's seventh birthday). He is put on a flight with inmates being transferred to a new
Supermax prison being built in his native
Alabama . The plane is hijacked by Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (Malkovich) and several other prisoners, on the payroll of drug lord and fellow transfer prisoner Francisco Cindino. The rest of the story involves U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin (Cusack) trying to get the plane back in one piece and the prisoners back in prison; Poe trying to stay alive and aid Larkin, while saving the guards of the plane and the diabetic Baby-O; other law enforcement officers (including Meany) trying to shoot the plane down; and Cyrus the Virus trying to get the plane to its rendezvous point so that he and the other hijackers can get to
South America .
