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Pushing Tin | Year: 1999 Classification: Comedy Directed: - Mike Newell Actors/Actresses: - Angelina Jolie - Billy Bob Thornton - Cate Blanchett - John Cusack Disappointing movie, great cast Pushing Tin is a slang term used by air traffic controllers. It refers to moving all those commercial jetliners around the sky as they prepare for landing. It's well know that this is a high stress job. I would never consider it. I got stressed out just watching the controllers in Pushing Tin doing their jobs, and they were only actors. I have a hard enough time "landing" my car in our garage without taking out the trash cans. To enjoy this movie, you have to understand that it is a comedy. Even knowing that, the humor will prove too dry or sophisticated for some viewers' tastes. John Cusack plays Nick Falzone, a decent, dedicated guy who has been working in the air traffic control profession for fifteen years. His wife, Connie [Kate Blanchett], not only adores him, she understands how much pressure his job puts on him. Despite his attempts to maintain an even keel, it is obvious by watching him and his coworkers at work and play, that the balance is precarious at best. One day a new employee arrives. Russell Bell [Billy Bob Thornton] is a quiet, eccentric guy, who has never fit in anywhere a day in his life. He also has a work style that is unnerving to the other employees, especially Nick. Russell is much faster and more aggressive in lining up those big hunks of tin in the sky. This causes fiction between Nick and Russell, and soon a great competition ensues. The battle spill out of the workplace when Nick unwittingly gets too close to Russell's beautiful wife, Mary [Angelina Jolie]. Russell will prove to be the catalyst that sends Nick over the edge. There are scenes in Pushing Tin that are quite funny. There are others that are intense, especially the ones in which the possibility of a midair collision is real. Parts of it seem authentic. We see just how much power a controller has. A pilot has little choice but to fly his plane just as the controller instructs him to. Passengers are happily unaware that, in the landing procedure, the pilot isn't flying the craft. Someone on the ground is. The stars are all first-rate professionals. John Cusack has lit up the screen in independent classics such as The Grifters and The Player, as well as in big budget films like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Billy Bob Thornton is on my short list of best actors working today. Cate Blanchett won an Oscar nomination for Elizabeth, and Angelina Jolie is an up and coming young actress. They try, but fail to overcome a script problem that is the movie's biggest weakness. Nick and Connie are finely drawn characters, but we never really get to know Russell and Mary, who are essential to the story. We know they are crazy, but, since their presence has such an impact on the other couple, it would be good to know why they behave the way they do. We are left in the dark, and this simply is not good writing. Pushing Tin fails in the character development area. Because of this, the film ends up being lightweight, rather than simply light. A SMART COMEDY Presentes by british director Mike Newell, PUSHING TIN with John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton hasn't had much success at the box office last summer. Why ? Cusack and Thornton are both excellent actors, Newell directed two great hits in the recent years, FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL and DONNIE BRASCO with Al Pacino, and the comedy genre is generally appreciated by international audiences. So, it's a weak screenplay. NO ! In my opinion, PUSHING TIN's screenplay is one of the smartest of 1999. At least, for a non-american audience. Imagine John Cusack impersonating THE air-traffic controller of your worst nightmares : big mouth, cafeine-loaded and willing to stay the best even if it means to endanger hundreds of lives. So, what a relief when appears Billy Bob Thornton, a half-breed Choctaw (an american-indian nation), with a sexy wife and a politically not so correct attitude. His motorcycle (not a Harley...) is faster than Cusack's car, he can handle more airplanes on his screen and beats Cusack's records when playing basket-ball. So, with subtlety, Mike Newell attacks a certain number of american attitudes or certitudes. Now do you understand why PUSHIN TIN had no success at all ? A trailer as sole bonus feature. Spanish subtitles. A curious DVD. Not that great This movie is predicated on the premise that Air Traffic Control is an interesting job. About halfway through, the filmakers abandon the exitement of the control room for a plot about adultery and revenge. The characters are really uniteresting. John Cusack should be embarrassed for hamming it up as this guy who thinks he is macho because he's an Air Traffic Controler. Or is he an Air Traffic Controller because he thinks he is macho? Australian actress Kate Blanchette, whose best known role before doing this movie was Queen Elizabeth I in "Elizabeth," here plays Cusack's wife as a setrotypically dull middle-class American who doesn't really do that much. Her talent is completely wasted here. The main interest for this movie is that Billy-Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie seem to have first met while making it, resulting in there breif, yet highly publicized marriage. Somebody else who reviewed this for Amazon says this movie is a comedy. While I admit there is some comic relief, it never occurred to me that this movie was ever meant to be a comedy. Buy Pushing Tin at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  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