| A group of men
emerge from a giant warehouse, their eyes
obscured by dark sunglasses. No,
it’s not one of those Ray Ban
commercials with the vampires –
it’s Pushing Tin, a film
about a group of over-stressed,
bleary-eyed New York air traffic
controllers, working the most crowded air
space in the world. The name comes from
the vocational slang for when a
controller is landing planes at a
higher-than-average rate, or
"pushing tin." John
Cusack (Midnight in the Garden of Good
& Evil) stars as Nick "the
Zone" Falzone, the fast-talking,
efficient leader of the group who finds
his life thrown into upheaval when his
bosses hire another alpha-male, Russell
Bell (Billy Bob Thornton, A Simple
Plan), to work alongside him.
Bell’s tag as "an interesting
guy" and Zen attitude toward his job
and personal life brings out all of
Falzone’s insecurities. Plus, Bell
has a really hot wife (Angelina Jolie, Gia).
Before you know it, Falzone is reduced to
a simpering idiot.
You would expect
more from a film with this pedigree.
Director Mike Newell (Donnie Brasco)
has a more-than-decent track record, and
the acting talent is first-class (three
Oscar nominations and two Golden Globe
wins in the last three years). The big
problem is with the predictable script,
which was adapted from Darcy Frey’s
magazine article titled
"Something’s Got to Give"
and is the first film adapted for the
screen by Cheers creators Glen and
Les Charles. Tin also features a
bizarre subplot focusing on
Falzone’s lone female coworker
(Vicki Lewis, NewsRadio) and her
aspiring bodybuilding career.
2:03 –
for nudity, adult language and some mild
violence
|
