Ground Control (1999) *** out of *****
Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Robert Sean Leonard, Kelly McGillis, Michael Gross, Margaret Cho, Charles Fleischer, Farrah Forke, Henry Winkler, Bruce McGill, Kristy Swanson Directed by: Richard Howard Running Time: 93 minutes
On one of the busiest travel days of the year with a dangerous storm front moving across the western part of the United States, two Phoenix air traffic controllers square off against one another at their job while battling equpiment malfunctions and power outages.
Keifer Sutherland stars as Jack Harris, a former air traffic controller who is unable to do his job any longer after a flight he was controlling crashes, killing everyone onboard. A few years later a former collegue asks him to help out at the control center, as they are severely understaffed. There he clashes with another controller (Robert Sean Leonard) who thinks that Harris has no business controlling any longer.
Ground Control has a good cast, particularly Henry Winkler as the engineer trying to keep the control center together. It has an extremely low budget, as it looks like the main set is just a darkened warehouse with a couple of rows of computer monitors in the center of it. So if watch the film don't expect a lot and you just might like what you see. It's a simple tale of air traffic controllers on a busy day, almost like a reverse Airport. Nothing fancy, but entertaining nonetheless.
Ground Control is available on DVD from Trimark. It contains the film in it's standard format, the usual cast and crew info, and includes the film's trailer. [PG-13]
The Jacksonville Film Journal -- Film Reviews by Chuck Dowling URL:http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Email:chuckd21@leading.net
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