Conair

Cameron Poe, a highly decorated and honorably discharged United States Army Ranger returns to Alabama from his tour of duty in the Gulf War to reunite himself with his pregnant wife, a waitress at a local diner. Upon leaving the diner, he and his wife are assaulted by three belligerent customers, and Poe accidentally kills one of them in self-defense. He pleads guilty to manslaughter charges on the recommendation of his attorney, but receives the maximum sentence of 7-10 years because his military skills classify him a deadly weapon. He is incarcerated before his daughter is born.

Poe maintains correspondence with his daughter throughout the duration of his sentence. During this time, elements of his personality reveal a sense of honor, nobility, and utilizing violence only as a last resort to resolving conflicts. To pass the time, Poe becomes a heavy reader, learns Spanish and origami. He develops a close friendship with fellow prisoner Mike "Baby-O" O'Dell. He is paroled on his daughter's seventh birthday, having served seven years in prison.

Poe is scheduled to fly home to Alabama along with an assortment of inmates bound for a new Supermax prison being constructed in his home state. The inmates are incarcerated for a variety of extreme offenses, ranging from serial- and mass-murder to an assortment of petty offenses. Many are extremely dangerous and chained to their individual transport cages inside the C-123 airplane, including William "Billy Bedlam" Bedford, Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones and Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom.

The transfer is overseen by U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack), brought in to ensure a safe and efficient transfer and DEA agent Duncan Malloy (Colm Meaney), interested in planting an undercover officer among the officers & inmates to acquire valuable intelligence from one of the convicts on the flight. Larkin discourages Malloy's intent to plant an armed undercover DEA agent aboard the plane. Malloy grudgingly accepts the conditions, but slips the agent a concealed firearm in his sock just before he boards the plane.

After take-off several of the prisoners remove hidden pins from beneath their skin. One of the inmates, Pinball (Dave Chappelle), retrieves petrol and matches lodged in his throat and ignites a fellow convict, causing a distraction and allowing Grissom and Jones the opportunity to unlock their restraints. Pinball opens Grissom and Jones's security cages. The inmates revolt, killing or detaining the guards in the cabin and killing the co-pilot with the security firearm. Grissom instructs the pilot to reassure the control tower below that the flight is on schedule, and the inmates take control of the plane.

As Pinball unlocks the restraints of the undercover DEA agent he discovers his hidden gun. The agent panics and immediately takes Pinball hostage and starts making demands for a prompt landing. After being momentarily distracted, the agent is shot by Grissom. The plane makes its scheduled landing in Carson City for a prisoner swap, where an assortment of prisoners and guards disguised as prisoners (to stand in for prisoners killed in the takeover) are transferred off the plane. Several other convicts are transferred aboard the plane. One of them is Garland "The Marietta Mangler" Greene, a notorious serial killer. Another is Francisco Cindino, the mastermind of the operation, a prominent drug lord that drafted the other prisoners into the operation in exchange for asylum in "non-extradition territory".

For the duration of the movie Poe remains the anti-hero, thrust into a heroic stance to protect both Baby-O, who suffers from diabetes and needs a now-missing insulin shot, and one of the female guards, who is restrained and of particular interest to "Johnny 23," an infamous serial rapist, with "23" being the number of his victims. Poe, on numerous occasions, is responsible for alerting local authorities to the dire situation of the plane and, in one sequence, writes messages to Larkin on the shirt of Pinball (he died during the rush to get back on the Jailbird in Carson City after he removes the plane's transponder), which he drops out of the plane onto the streets of a crowded city. He is successful in concealing his identity until the end of the film, where he actively resists the inmates on the plane and aids Larkin on a ground chase through Las Vegas after the plane famously crashes on the Las Vegas Strip. The end of the chase sees Cyrus crushed by a large machine, Poe reunited with his daughter (having managed to preserve the stuffed rabbit), and Garland Greene eluding capture and gambling in a casino.