Con Air

Stupidity: For a brilliant criminal mastermind, Cyrus makes so many idiotic mistakes. (1) He leaves his entire escape plan hidden in the wall for the guards to find later instead of trying to dispose or destroy them (2) He makes the fatal mistake of trusting Santiago completely and never suspecting a double-cross. At the very least, he should have checked all of Lerner airfield just in case the plane was hiding (which it was). (3) He never notices or even questions Billy Bedlam's sudden absence until he sees his body. Odd considering he notice Santiago's absence immediately. And (4) When escaping on the firetruck, he (pointlessly) chooses to ride on the ladder instead of the front seat where he stands out, and Poe and Larkin both spot him. No surprise his whole plan failed.

Gavin Jackson

Stupidity: After Nick discovers the parole letter about Po, he crinkles it up and throws it down. After Po kills him, wouldn't you think the first thing he would do would be to pick up that letter and also take the letter that his daughter wrote and put them in his pocket so that no one else could discover them? (01:01:00)

Murfcin

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Mistakes

Factual error: The whole basis of the trial and conviction of Cameron Poe is a crock. The judge can not arbitrarily mete out a sentence that is harsher based on the ability of someone to defend him/herself. In justifying the harsher sentence because of Poe's military skills, the judge effectively says that Poe is more guilty than an average person due to his honorable and decorated service in uniform to his country. In my entire time in law school, I never read one out of the literally hundreds of cases I was assigned in which a judge issued a harsher sentence because of someone's innate or learned abilities to defend themselves. But since this was a movie court room proceeding, the fact that Poe had a witness to the fight (his wife), the fact that he was injured in the fight, and the fact that his uniform was torn and otherwise ruined as a result of the fight are never examined. A D.A. wouldn't have taken this to a grand jury on a bet, because they would have never returned an indictment or "true bill."

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Quotes

Garland Greene: Define irony - a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.

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Trivia

Trivia: At the end of the movie, the plane is crashing into the front of a casino. This building is actually The Sands hotel. The scene was done a few weeks/months before the hotel was demolished, this way the damages to the hotels entrance as the plane was launched into it didn't matter.

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Questions

Question: What is the actual likelihood that a decorated serviceman, with no prior criminal record (we know this because if Poe had any priors he wouldn't have been in the Army) would actually get prison time for killing two men who attacked himself and his girlfriend? Seeing as there were witnesses (said girlfriend and bartender) I find it hard to believe he would have gotten more than an extended period of probation. A prison term, even a year or two, seems severely harsh considering the circumstances.

dablues7

Chosen answer: Zero. As you said, he was attacked and there are witnesses that he tried to avoid the fight and the killings were in self-defense. It is an extremely weak plot hammer to get Poe onto a plane full of criminals. It's foolish as well. The writers could have had Poe framed for a crime then exonerated and put in the same situation much more believably.

Grumpy Scot

It's in Alabama. People are put in prison here for much less.

First, Poe is a federal prisoner, not subject to State laws or legal procedures. Secondly, he is not in Alabama. During a conversation with Billy Bedlam we hear that he is incarcerated in the "Q" - prison slang for San Quentin in California. It makes you wonder why a Federal prisoner is in a State prison, but that's another type of mistake.

Would it really be considered self-defense, though? After he beat the guys to the ground he could have just stopped and walked away, but he didn't. He kept beating them until they died.

He is defending his wife against two armed assailants, and use of lethal force is allowable. No DA in the United States would even think about pressing charges, knowing full well a grand jury would throw them out in a second.

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