Nicolas Cage is at the other end of the acting spectrum from his work in Raising Arizona, doing his best stone-faced Arnie impression in this ultra-high concept action film.

A group of the country's most vicious criminals take over a plane transporting them to a new prison. You can imagine the rest, but it's much more fun in a popcorn and loud music sort of way to experience it. On his way home after a prison term for murdering a thug insulting his Ranger code, Cameron Poe (Cage) only wants to get back to his wife and the daughter he hasn't met yet. But his co-travellers (among them Malkovich's Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom and Rhames' 'Diamond Dog') have other plans - to take over the plane and put it in the service of drug dealers in exchange for escape.

Poe has to single handedly outsmart and fight off the most gruesome assortment of prisoners possibly ever amassed for a movie. His only ally is grounded US Marshall Vince Larkin (Cusack, in his first big mainstream role), in turn thwarted by a gung ho DIA officer (Meaney) who just wants to shoot them all down. Pure Simpson and Bruckheimer, even though it was completed after Simpson's death in 1996 - big guns and planes, rock and roll music, larger than life characters, and down home, American-as-all-hell values delivered MTV style. Totally brainless but great guilty fun.