In my memory, this entire movie takes place on Alcatraz.
Counterintuitively, even though he just burned and maimed many, Connery is actually tender. He only ripped Womack’s arm out of its socket and ran away from the FBI so that he could go see his daughter for the first time in twenty years and try to make amends. “I’m not an evil man,” he tells her. She’s skeptical, and just then every cop in San Francisco drives up. Cage, intuiting the sitch, swoops in with the big save: “He’s working with us.”
This is a soft, healthy masculinity of which I approve! Men deserve perceptive, caring friendships with other men!
As they sketch out a plan, the FBI tries to get Connery to tell them the way into Alcatraz, but he just says he’ll know it when he gets there: “My blueprint was in my head! I was underground for three days in the dark.” Everybody’s just gonna have to trust him.
Then, unfortunately, Connery says this: “Womack, you’re between the Rock and a hard case.” Somebody is still rich from writing this line! And, what the hay, I support it!
A Navy SEAL team is assigned to accompany Cage and Connery into the Rock, and buon giorno, look who it is! Fabrizio! Fabrizio promises Cage that he will protect him like he would protect his nonna’s gabagool. Cage feels a little bit better.
They all get suited up in scuba gear—“In my day, we did it all with a schnorkel and a pair of flippersh”—and swim in through a hole in Alcatraz (that was easy). They’re in!
The only way out of this room is through a big tube that is regularly blasted with a jet of flame (what is that for?). Sean Connery offers to roll through the flame tube and unlock the door for everyone, and it’s okay because he “memorized it” sixty years ago. As soon as he rolls through the tube, the Navy SEALs start bitching, “Looks like he fucked us, Commander.” “That son of a bitch jumped ship.”
HOW??? EVEN IF HE DID, HE’S NOW INSIDE ALCATRAZ. HE ESCAPED YOU BY…BREAKING INTO PRISON?????????????
He didn’t, though. He opens up the door and is like, “Welcome to the Rock.”
OPENING CREDITS. (JK.)
It rapidly becomes clear that Nicolas Cage sucks at breaking into the Rock. He is not good at guns, or climbing, or walking, or being quiet, or being fast, or having a good attitude. And yeah, of course he’s not! He’s not trained!!!! He shouldn’t be there!!!!! It’s like having a basketball player on your team because he’s good at repairing basketball hoops!!!!!
They creep up to a manhole that will take them to the next level of the Rock. They just have to neutralize the security system first. The Navy SEAL commander successfully tricks the laser prism, but he doesn’t know it’s also got a wiggle detector! They’re caught! Now they are completely surrounded by Ed Harris’s boys. It’s Marines vs. SEALs.
The Navy SEAL commander tries to reason with Ed Harris: “Sir, we know why you’re out here. God knows I agree with you. But like you, sir, I agreed to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Wow, what a morally complex situation, almost as though this movie deserves every Oscar, foreign and domestic!
MEN YELLING MEN YELLING MEN YELLING.
Right in the tensest moment, some bonehead accidentally kicks a rock and everyone flips out and shoots each other until literally all of the Navy SEALs are dead, even Fabrizio. Mamma mia. Ed Harris is sad. Nobody heard him yell, “Cease fire.” He didn’t come here to kill SEALs! He came here to give Marines $1 million! This sucks!
Nobody knows that Cage and Connery are still down there in the sewer tubes, a significant advantage for their mission, but unfortunately they start chitchatting so loud that the mercenaries immediately find them: “We have a rodent problem.” “Flush the pipes.” They start dropping bombs down there, and not the fun kind of bombs (shits).
Cage and Connery narrowly escape, then sneak into the morgue (which seems to still be fully functional and packed with vats of corpse chemicals, even though this has not been a functioning prison since 1963?) where the first three VX rockets are hidden. Sean Connery throws a knife through a Marine’s neck and advises Cage, “You must never hesitate.” If you see a neck, you have to throw a knife through it.
Connery covers Cage while he goes to disarm the rockets. “You’re shooting too close to the rockets!” Sean Connery will not stop shooting close to the rockets. He’s a maverick like that. A Marine is about to pull the pin on a grenade near the rockets, so Connery shoots an air-conditioning unit and it falls on the guy, squishing him, and yet nobody wrote or ad-libbed the line, “Why don’t you COOL OFF?” Rude! Maybe I don’t like this movie!
This is so stressful that Nicolas Cage finally snaps (YESSSSSSS): “Look, I’m just a biochemist. Most of the time, I work in a glass jar and lead a very uneventful life. I drive a Volvo. A beige one. But what I’m dealing with here is one of the most deadly substances the earth has ever known, so what say you cut me some FRIGGIN’ SLACK?”
They escape and/or fall (I forget) into a hole and now somehow they are riding around on a mine cart in a subterranean cavern. Quick Q: Why is that in Alcatraz?
Ed Harris starts threatening to shoot civilian hostages if Connery and Cage don’t stop riding around in the mine carts and messing with his rockets. Connery is like, “Okay, lemme hop out of this rolly coaster and just go talk to him.” He climbs(?) up there and lays a PHAT guilt trip: “I can’t see how you honor the memory of the dead
