The Rock

The Rock (1996) is Michael Bay's action thriller you can watch online on iFILM. A team of battle-hardened soldiers seizes Alcatraz and aims rockets full of nerve gas at San Francisco.

Behind the mutiny stands General Hummel (Ed Harris), a decorated war hero who feels his country betrayed the men who died under his command. He holds thirty tourists hostage on the prison island and demands ransom for their fallen families. Two mismatched men get the job of stopping him: jittery FBI chemist Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), out in the field for the first time, and John Mason (Sean Connery), the only prisoner who ever escaped the Rock and still remembers every tunnel beneath it.

This is early Bay before the excess took over: a wild car chase down the San Francisco hills, a shootout in the cell-block showers, Jerry Bruckheimer producing and Hans Zimmer scoring. Connery plays an aging spy with a wink, and his chemistry with Cage carries the film as much as the explosions do. Stream The Rock (1996) online on iFILM.