Con Air / Les ailes de l'enfer

The wings of hell

The news that John Cusack would love a Con Air sequel got me wondering... “What’s the French title for that again?”

Nicolas Cage with long hair - be afraid!

I don’t remember much about Con Air - I might accidentally have seen it around when  it came out. I remember most of my male friends talking about it as a good action film, despite Nicolas Cage.
I also remember the guffaws when we found out what the original title was: Con Air.
For once, it is not very hard to see why the title was translated.

Con, in French, is a rude little word. When it is applied to someone, it is the ruder version of idiot. It can also refer to the female bits. (This subject was covered in these posts about “Le dîner de cons” here and here.)
Although Con Air was released the year before before “Le dîner de cons” came out in cinemas, and I can see why there might have been some hesitations using that particular word on posters all over the country, it has to be noted that Le dîner de cons, the play, had been out since 1993 (but probably in a smaller area for a smaller audience).To make things worse, Con Air sounds like "connard", which means asshole or dickhead (or my favourite new insult “Douche Canoe” - come on, try to say it out loud, it’s brilliant”) and I can guess that nobody wanted people all around the country asking for “2 tickets pour Connard, s'il vous plaît!”.


Haha :)



It was wisely decided to give the film a new and fresh title. And since the story happens on a plane, they gave it “wings”...

I am convinced that the French title, "Les ailes de l’enfer", was inspired by Wim Wenders’ “Les ailes du désir” (aka “Wings of Desire”), but turning them more... Hellish? Hell denoting violence, I guess.

I will be fair and say that it took me a while to figure how I would have translated the title - and it’s a toss between “Air dupe” or “Air arnaque” ("Duper" and "arnaquer" both meaning "to con" - although I am convinced this would made the film sound like a comedy, somehow, that is not something the “official translators” take into considerations, as we know).

All things considered, “Les ailes de l’enfer” is not the worst title they could have come up with.