 |
| Grace, dignity and poise. |
Con Air (1997)
Con Air is the kind of stupid, macho, overblown action film Michael Bay could only dream of making. Cusack and aforementioned acting inferno Nicolas Cage work together to try and stop a prison plane overtaken by John Malkovich and his pantomime collection of America's deadliest prisoners. JC takes a backseat here to the preposterous action (a place crash landing on the Las Vegas strip is only the second least believable scene), his everyman charm leading pathos and reassurance to overly excited audience members.
Con Air is the kind of stupid, macho, overblown action film Michael Bay could only dream of making. Cusack and aforementioned acting inferno Nicolas Cage work together to try and stop a prison plane overtaken by John Malkovich and his pantomime collection of America's deadliest prisoners. JC takes a backseat here to the preposterous action (a place crash landing on the Las Vegas strip is only the second least believable scene), his everyman charm leading pathos and reassurance to overly excited audience members.
Grosse Point Blank (1997)
Being an assassin is cool, wearing all black is cool and John Cusack is cool. Subsequently John Cusack as an all black wearing assassin in Grosse Point Blank is cool³. This story of reunions, revenge and romance sees JC's Martin Blank returning for his high school 10 year anniversary and running in to old flame Minnie Driver. The script is endlessly quotable and the support cast are brilliant, as is Joe Strummer’s ska-laced soundtrack.
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Cusack moves from assassin to puppeteer in Spike Jonze’s blindingly surreal directorial debut. Being John Malkovich is one part Inception and one part Alice In Wonderland. Cusack’s Craig Schwartz (acting against type as a pathetic loser) becomes a filer on an office’s mysterious 7 1/2th floor, where he finds a small portal which takes him into actor John Malkovich’s mind for exactly fifteen minutes. Cameron Diaz in a monkey cage, life size puppets and John Malkovich himself all contribute to the mad genius.
High Fidelity (2000)
This Chicago based adaptation of Nick Hornby’s decidedly British break-up novel overcame expectations to win over sceptics and gain new converts. Cusack’s broken-hearted record store owner divides his time between music elitism and downtrodden reflection upon past relationships over a pumping indie soundtrack. It has everything a film needs, great music, late twenties angst and Jack Black before his shtick wore thin.
2012 (2009, controversially)
Definitely not to everyone’s taste, Roland Emmerich’s disaster movie magnum opus is awful in all the right ways. Cusack's washed up limo driver doesn't have much to do here except run away from increasingly portentous amounts of lava, but even that he does with grace and aplomb. The dialogue starts bad and progresses to mythically dreadful levels, the closing line drawing parallels between mankind's redemption and a successfully unsoiled nappy. But all is forgiven with scenes of flying subway carriages and a fallen St Paul's Basilica bulldozing the Vatican.
Definitely not to everyone’s taste, Roland Emmerich’s disaster movie magnum opus is awful in all the right ways. Cusack's washed up limo driver doesn't have much to do here except run away from increasingly portentous amounts of lava, but even that he does with grace and aplomb. The dialogue starts bad and progresses to mythically dreadful levels, the closing line drawing parallels between mankind's redemption and a successfully unsoiled nappy. But all is forgiven with scenes of flying subway carriages and a fallen St Paul's Basilica bulldozing the Vatican.
