The Bunny is the Most Important Character in “Con Air”
I always thought that if you watched Con Air for the first time with your eyes closed you could be convinced it was the high-octane sequel to Forrest Gump. Nicolas Cage’s panhandle twang is a conceptually characterized remix of the Antebellum South, with all the nuance of Mickey Rooney from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And its earnestness is never more apparent than when he begs a fellow airborne inmate to “put the bunny back in the box.”
That’s because the bunny is the most important character in Con Air.
The movie is full of animal references. Ving Rhames plays an eccentric black militant named “Diamond Dog”. Cage’s Cameron Poe — a disgraced army ranger, just hitching a ride home after his prison sentence — writes letters to his wife in which he calls her his “hummin’bird”, and folds origami cranes while waiting for her reply. And Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom — John Malkovich’s brilliant blend of Ted Bundy and Stone Cold Steve Austin — threatens a government pilot with the promise of flies buzzing around his rotting corpse. It’s like a sadistic trip to the zoo.
The bunny, though — a gift Poe hopes to give his young daughter upon meeting her for the first time — is really a remarkable symbol, nestled subtly between explosions, plot holes, and trailer fodder.
When the bunny first appears, it’s mocked by Poe’s prison friend as a subpar gift. He’d rather have “a tube of toothpaste and a pack of Pall Malls.” But, is it really a gift for a little girl? Or is it Poe’s sheepish way of saying, “I’m ready to be human again.” The bunny, wrapped tightly in plastic, is immaculate, its fur completely untouched by the terrors of prison life. Poe, on the other hand, is dirty, unkempt, and haggard after his seven years.
Fast forward to Poe hitching a ride home aboard Con Air. You know the story: the cons take over the plane, and run roughshod on justice and decency. During the ensuing chaos, one of the unchained inmates — William “Billy Bedlam” Bedford — makes his way to the plane’s cargo hold to investigate his suspicions about Poe’s motivations. He uncovers a letter that reveals Poe’s status as a free man, and the bunny. Poe confronts him, utters the famous line in complete seriousness, and kills Billy Bedlam after a cramped skirmish in the plane’s belly. As he stares at Bedlam’s freshly-impaled body, he ponders, “Why couldn’t you put the bunny back in the box?”
Why not, indeed? By exposing the bunny — now symbolically free from its plastic wrap — Bedlam also unleashes Poe. Poe begged Bedlam — a notorious spree killer — to put the bunny back. But Bedlam refused, poked and prodded the bunny and, in doing so, let Poe’s violent and lethal nature out of itsbox as well, much to Poe’s chagrin.
The final appearance of the bunny sees it rescued from a storm drain by Poe, shortly before handing it to his daughter. The bunny is, for all intents and purposes, ruined. It’s wet. It’s filthy. It’s probably covered in blood. And so is Poe. But, as he hands it to his young daughter — who he’s meeting for the first time — he does so with a gentleness and an atonement for his sins that suggests they can both be washed off, reformed, and loved.
And, in the background, Steve Buscemi’s “Marietta Mangler” — the most famous serial killer in the film’s universe — is playing blackjack completely unnoticed in Vegas.
It’s not a perfect movie.
