On an aircraft carrying some of the most notorious criminals of all time, the recently paroled Cameron Poe (Cage) is hitching a ride home to his wife and daughter. But he suddenly finds himself embroiled in a mid-air skyjacking masterminded by Cirus “The Virus” Grissom (Malkovich). While Cameron fights to keep these savage convicts from massacring everyone on board as they career towards the famed Las Vegas Stip, a government agant on the ground (Cusack) battles to keep his overzealous superiors from blowing the plane into oblivion.