Just as Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) comes home to visit his wife, he is met by a few less-than-upstanding citizens who want to cause trouble. Unfortunately for them, Poe is an Army Ranger, which means that they probably aren't in the best position when it comes to a fight.
So when they decide to ambush him outside the bar, Poe gets the best of them. But when all is said and done, and one of them ends up dead on the ground, it is Poe who gets the short end of the stick. All he was doing was protecting his wife, but since he is trained as a deadly weapon, he ends up in prison.
After eight years in prison, he finally gets to go home and meet his little girl, who he has never met. He has corresponded with her, but he apparently wouldn't let her come see him in prison. Instead, he just ate her pink coconut treats, which he shared with his co-convict.
At least they helped him make a friend, because during one prison riot, his friend Mike "Baby-O" O'Dell (Mykelti Williamson) pulled him out of the fire, all because of the pink coconut treats.
Now it is eight years after he was incarcerated, and Poe is just a plane ride away from freedom. All he has to do is take that ride and he'll be able to see his wife and little girl. So with Baby-O and several of the worst criminals the country has to offer, they get on board the Jailbird, a plane operated by the US Marshal service to ferry prisoners around the system.
Unfortunately for Poe, some of the prisoners have other plans for the plane.
A plan masterminded by Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich) has them taking over the plane. Cyrus earned his nickname because people say he has killed more people than some viruses. So he, along with Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones (Ving Rhames) and several other prisoners, set their plan in motion.
As the plane taxis down the runway, the prisoners pull pins out of their hands and take off their cuffs. Joe "Pinball" Parker (Dave Chappelle), who hid gasoline and a match in a condom in his throat, sets another prisoner on fire, and in the confusion, the inmates take over the plane. Poe knows that things are bad, but he keeps his cool in the hopes that it will turn out eventually.
While he has the opportunity to get off the plane, Baby-O has diabetes, and it seems that in the confusion, all the needles to administer insulin were broken. So he decides to stick it out to see if he can save his friend, as well as one of the guards who is still on the plane.
In Carson City, Swamp Thing (M.C. Gainey of Lost) joins the crew to take over the pilot duties, and they head for the rendezvous point.
Along the way, they find the body of Pinball, stuck in the landing gear, and Poe writes a note on him and drops him to the ground, which sends a message to Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack), who is trying to track the plane.
The rendezvous, at a small field, is where things start to go bad. First, Swamp Thing has to bring the plane down just short of the propane tank, so it gets stuck in the sand. Then the promised jet doesn't show. Or rather, it does, but the drug lord who promised it would be there has it holed up in a hangar, and Cyrus gets mad about that, and the plane ends up on fire - along with the drug lord.
So the inmates have to pull the plane out, but as they work on that, the Marshals show up, and a massive firefight ensues. Finally the plane gets out, and they take off, towing a car (which is an interesting sight to see).
The finale hinges on Poe taking over the plane, and a fancy landing on the Las Vegas strip, followed by a pretty impressive chase along the freeways of Las Vegas on motorcycles and fire engines. It's actually a bit much. But Poe makes it back to see his wife and daughter in the end.
It probably would have been better without the whole Las Vegas part, as that just goes too far over the top. In fact, it's like Speed, where it's good up until the end and the it just goes a little haywire and gets completely over the top.
The Bottom Line: It's hard to determine just what we should believe sometimes. After all, if we take most movies at face value, prisoners are let out and left to stand by the road when their terms are served. So why would Nicolas Cage be any different? Still, if that's the only leap of faith that we need to take, it's not really a bad one. It's not, of course, with a huge number of high-profile criminal masterminds being placed onto the same plane at the same time, but even so, up until the final chase through the streets of Las Vegas, everything is really pretty bearable. That last chase scene could have been dropped entirely without affecting much, however. Still, it's an enjoyable ride.
Rated R for language and violence.
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