PUSHING TIN A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): **
In Mike Newell's PUSHING TIN, John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton go head to head as rival air traffic controllers. If you thought air traffic controllers wouldn't be promising subjects for a comedy, you'd be right, at least based on PUSHING TIN. But forget the marketing, maybe the film was meant to be a drama, not a comedy. Regardless of its intentions, the resulting movie, while not bad, is neither particularly funny nor dramatic.
I've seen the movie and still have no idea what the director was trying to do. It almost seems as if the creative energies ended after the film's admittedly strong casting was completed. Glen Charles's script, based on an article by Darcy Frey, doesn't have many ideas other than one good sight gag, which is done twice, and involves a bit of ridiculous bravado. The story's twists are predicable, and one of the best scenes is set up only to be aborted just as it is starting to work.
If real New York air traffic controllers are anything like the guys in this movie, you may want to rethink your upcoming trip to the Big Apple. They spend their time horsing around, acting like overgrown kids playing an increasingly boring video game. They get their kicks by playing games with those little graphics representing airplanes in the sky. Acting like frat boys anxiously awaiting the next panty raid, they fidget and jump all over the place. There is a token female on board, but we're shown her at her body building competition to prove that underneath she's really one of the guys.
When they're not on the job, the controllers are performing daredevil maneuvers in their flashy cars. (They make better than a hundred grand, their wives brag.) In a scene lifted straight out of MARRIED TO THE MOB, their overly made-up wives compare numbers, as in which wife number are you? Third seems to be about average. These guys burn out wives like tires at a racetrack.
Nick Falzone (Cusack) is the leader of the pack, until a lone wolf named Russell Bell (Thornton) comes into his air traffic controller den. Like rival alpha males, they test each other by seeing who can stack the planes into the tightest spacing without blinking and without causing passenger deaths. Hint: Bet on Billy Bob.
Thrown in the plot for no extra charge and not much reason is some juicy marital infidelity. Cate Blanchett, looking like a Mafioso wife, plays Nick's wife, Connie. The winner in the maximum cleavage category, Angelina Jolie plays Russell's wife, Mary. Besides producing the most saliva from Russell's coworkers, the alcoholic Mary's big claim to fame is that she is the only wife number 1 in the group.
After the affair -- or is it affairs? -- the already charged dynamics between Nick and Russell take on even stranger dimensions. If the characters were either more genuine or more humorous, this part might have proved interesting. As it is, the movie just lies there without much happening until the last act, which contains several endings. Too bad only one of them is satisfactory, and it's not the last one.
Is there a market for a comedy that isn't particularly funny or a drama that doesn't have much impact? Only time will tell, but this movie doesn't have much going for it other than the marquee names.
PUSHING TIN runs too long at 2:04. It is rated R for some profanity, nudity and sexuality and would be fine for teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
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