Words of wisdom, found in an unexpected place.

Last night I re-watched Con Air for the first time, in what has to be at least five years (far too long in my opinion). Con Air is the second in a string of three pretty bad ass action films from the late 90s, all starring Nicolas Cage. This was before all that City of Angels and National Treasure bullshit. When Cage's awful acting could be overshadowed by ballin' action sequences, switching faces with John Travolta, and leading an assault on Alcatraz with none other than Sean Connery.

This is not a review for the film. This is about a character in the film not played by Nicolas Cage. I am talking about Garland Green, as played by the great Steve Buscemi.

This character is a calm and collected psychopath, who has the best introduction of all the characters in the film. Con Air came out a year before what is arguably Buscemi's best role, in The Big Lebowski (one of my favorite movies of all time), leading me to believe (probably incorrectly) that if it wasn't for Con Air, he may have never played the memorable Donny. Let's ignore the fact that he had already played a major role in Fargo, another Coen Brothers film.


That man is creepy as hell.

Amongst the madness, one-liners, and a frantic John Cusak, Buscemi gets the chance to spit out a few lines that actually make sense, and (albeit slightly) comment of society. Its rare that you find pearls of wisdom in action movies whose sole purpose for existing are to show exactly how much shit you can blow up in 90 minutes or so. It was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, what else could you expect?

To give you some context, Buscemi's character seems to be somewhere between Hannibal Lector and Patrick Bateman. Anyways, here are some memorable lines from Buscemi during the film:

Buscemi on the films main baddie, Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom (played by John Malkovich):

"He's a font of misplaced rage. Name your cliché; Mother held him too much or not enough, last picked at kickball, late night sneaky uncle, whatever. Now he's so angry moments of levity actually cause him pain; gives him headaches. Happiness, for that gentleman, hurts. "

(After Nicholas Cage, Cameron Poe if you will, has called him insane):
"What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"

This next line takes place on the plane the cons have hijacked, with the song 'Sweet Home Alabama' playing in the backround:

"Define irony. Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash."

And finally, one line that completely lacks any wisdom at all, but I had to throw it in. Reminds me of American Psycho...

"One girl, I drove through three states wearing her head as a hat"


Go watch the movie. Then watch The Rock, then Face-Off, and forget everything else you thought you knew about Nicolas Cage.