Nicolas Cage: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

2. Cameron Poe - Con Air (1997)

Alright, enough of all this inner-turmoil and brooding - let's get into the real meat and potatoes of Nicolas Cage's film career, his mid-late 90s run as an action star! After years of appearing in mostly low-budget comedies, dramas and rom-coms, Cage transitioned into an explosion-causing, fist-fighting and all around awesome man of action. If I had to choose one film from this run above the others (a heartbreaker, I can assure you) it would have to be his turn as Cameron Poe in Con Air. Although stiff competition was provided by The Rock and Face/Off, Simon West's tale of a prisoner transport plane run amok edges them and features my preferred Cage performance. Poe is a criminal due to unfortunate circumstance, having been sent away for involuntary manslaughter after killing a drunk who was harassing his wife in the bar where she worked. Not that any of that is really important, since Con Air is all about explosions, guns, fights, explosions, one-liners, guns and explosions. And fights and guns. It's a silly, over-the-top action film of the best kind and Nicolas Cage looks every bit as comfortable as the muscle-bound, longhaired Poe dishing out justice as he does playing a struggling writer, a tortured paramedic or a working man with a murky past.