Mi espacio

Director Mike Newell's `Pushing Tin' is about the turbulent life of air traffic controllers. Its delightful and thought-provoking screenplay is not intended for the usual `airhead' moviegoer. So please put on your thinking cap for this one. The film stars John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, and Angelina Jolie. Thornton and Jolie executed average `plane' performances. However, Cusack and Blanchett rose high with theirs. I do not blame Billy Bob or Angelina for not going up to par with John and Cate. Maybe, Billy Bob and Angelina were way too much in the clouds on and off the set, or maybe it was just that their characters were not fully developed in the script. Even though i am not `Pushing Tin' as one of the best film of 99, it is still one that you should put on the `safe landing looking' section. *** Average

Another brilliant performance by John Cusack, and an equally cool one by Billy Bob Thornton. These two actors work so well together, and provide a superb onscreen chemistry. There's some lovely visuals in there too, especially of the traffic control screens, or the standing on the runway video.

The story is sometimes odd, and the characters derail in the wierdest fashion, but it's a nice story and has a message for all competitive people out there. You won't laugh insanely, but you'll giggle. A very enjoyable film.

Pushing Tin is somewhat of an odd movie. It's not really funny enough to be considered a comedy, and it's not really compelling/dramatic enough to be considered a good drama. It attempts to pull off both at once, but never really succeeds.

The pacing seems a little "off". You always expect the movie to pick-up at some point but it never really does. It does manage to move along quick enough that it keeps you awake (barely), but I always found myself wanting the story to move someplace / anyplace to keep me more interested than I was.

The story itself primarily centers around the antics of Nick Falzone (John Cusack) and Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton), both of whom are air traffic controllers. To it's credit, I've never seen a movie about ATC's, but at the same time Nick and Russell could have been in any other profession and the story would have held up. I sometimes think the writer chose ATC's simply because no one else had done it.

The main conflict centers around Nick's desire to out-do Russell. Why he feels the need to do this is never adequately explained. It's also somewhat of a mystery as to what Nick is hoping to accomplish by out-doing Russell. Most of their competitions are basically irrelevant and don't prove much anyway: holding onto a match the longest, shooting freethrows, stacking as many planes into a queue as possible, etc, etc. Their "battle of wits", as it were, eventually begins to involve their significant others. Unfortunately the respective wives (Blanchett and Jolie) are seemingly little better than pawns in Nick and Russell's bizarre and meaningless mind game. They don't have much depth of character, nor any wants/desires of their own (beyond the superficial), and, as a result, you don't really care what happens to them.

So, in short, Pushing Tin isn't that funny (though I seem to remember it being billed as a comedy) nor is the story engaging enough to be considered a good drama. As noted in my header, it's not a bad movie, but it isn't that good either. Worth a rental if you've seen everything else.

I rate it 5/10.

This movie just doesn't deliver. It gets too bogged down all through the middle as Cusack's life comes apart because of his determination to outdo Thornton's character. Also, Thornton's character (although he is the antagonist of the film) is way more interesting than Cusack's character, with whom we get frustrated and just wish he'd get his act together.

The movie does become more amusing towards the end once Cusack finally tries to do something about his sorry state. But too little, too late.

The film also uses the style of super-verite everyone-talk-at-once, which means that you can't hear the lines and it rarely does anything to add to the story. Seemed like the whole first third of the movie was there just to develop the "atmosphere". A number of scenes here and there that don't have any purpose in the story.

The acting's all fine and good, and the NJ/Long Island clothes and decor are fun. I blame the writer, director, and editor for the failure of this flick.

Okay, several parts of this movie were a bit far-fetched; (the wake turbulence from a heavy jet being one of them)but from a technical standpoint I can say that the phraseology, hazing, harassment, and ego trips are very accurate. Why? In a word, pride. Perhaps false pride at times, but pride nonetheless. The U.S. air traffic control system handles more traffic in a single day than any other country does in a week. Check the numbers, kids. It's true. The training is rigorous and relentless, and, at the risk of sounding like a commercial for the Marines, if you happen to be the one out of about a thousand who makes it through training to become a full performance level controller, it becomes a badge of honor. Very few people can do it. It is a close-knit family, which was also displayed in the film. If you'll notice the scene where a particular departure didn't "tag up" and one controller didn't notice it, several others jumped in to help out, and all joking and hazing stopped. Forgive my preaching, but this is the first movie that actually gave a somewhat accurate view of my profession, so hopefully I can be forgiven for being protective. (By the way, if I was married to someone who looked like Angelina Jolie, I'd keep her in the woods away from the slugs I work with, too.)