The next time I have an emotional breakdown, I think I'll just walk out onto the runway at Calgary airport and stand in front of a 747 while its landing and let the turbulence take me for the ride of my life as it roars past. I'm sure it will solve all my problems! While the scene is admittedly funny, "Pushing Tin" actually expects us to believe that this act provides Nick (John Cusack) with insight that will help him solve the troubles he has got himself into. As if! Perhaps I could accept this act of infantility if the entire movie worked at this comic level, but it doesn't. At one level the film is a serious drama, and at another level, it sinks to complete absurdity.
At first "Pushing Tin" had me. The first scenes with the air traffic controllers at work were intense and had me thinking back to all the times that I have flown on planes and wondering just how close other planes have been. John Cusack is great in these scenes uttering dialogue so quickly that it seems as though he's an auctioneer. However I almost wonder how the pilots are able to understand him. I was also interested in the initial conversations that take place outside the control room in places like coffee shops and pool halls.
Air traffic control is a high stress profession and the anxious atmosphere is caught quite well in the control room. Its no wonder the controllers who work there are cynical and have to resort to seemingly juvenile activities to keep themselves detached. They drink and party a lot, and there are a number of scenes showing Nick driving his car wrecklessly. At first, there are signs of hope that what we are going to see is a gripping film about the chaotic lives of air traffic controllers, but nothing is further from the truth.
Russel (Billy Bob Thornton) soon enters into the picture. His character is quite opposite from that of Nick's. Russel is more relaxed and willing to pile planes close together in order to perform his job more efficiently. Nick refers to him as a "loose cannon". Film-makers seem to love pitting opposites against one another.
Russel's character is seriously under drawn. Where does he come from? What aspects make up his detached and strange personality? No attempts are made to answer these questions We are given the names of a few places where he has been an air-traffic controller and that is all. He is a mysterious entity that seems to pop into the film from nowhere.
One night while Nick is in the supermarket, he runs into Russel's wife Mary (Angelina Jolie) whose character we also wonder about, but we are never given any insight. She is in tears and naturally Nick wants to comfort her. He takes her out to dinner at the restaurant that he and his wife Connie (Cate Blanchett) usually go to. From here on in, the story fills itself with absurdities beyond belief and plot holes big enough to drive a truck through them. The whole movie goes down hill so quickly that there should be a plane crash at some point just to show that the film has hit rock bottom.
It isn't long before Nick realizes that his life is hell. He can't even concentrate on work. Who does he turn to? None other than Russel who he some how finds fishing in Colorado. "Jump in the river", Russel commands. "Do you really want to solve your problems, let's go," Russel says. "You'll wish that you jumped in the river". From here the film works its way into the most absurd ending I have ever seen. Once I realized how everything was going to turn out, I just wanted to get up and walk out, and this was only about five minutes before the credits started rolling. Rarely do films ever anger me, but this ending was just so ludicrous, I could not help myself.
*1/2 out of ****
