A Comedy about Life, Love, Airplanes and Other Bumpy Rides. <BR>&nbsp;

A Comedy about Life, Love, Airplanes and Other Bumpy Rides.

Set in the air-control centre which handles the 7000 planes a day taking off and landing at New York`s airports, Pushing Tin is more about pathetic male egos than the pressures of keeping all the passengers of those 7,000 planes safe. John Cusack plays Nick Falzone - The Zone - top dog in the air traffic control hierarchy until Russell Bell - Billy Bob Thornton - arrives. Bell comes with a reputation for eccentricity, bravado and cool and he soon has Nick seething. Nick sees his opportunity to get to Russell by sleeping with his wife Mary - Angelina Jolie - but in doing so alienates his own wife Connie played by Cate Blanchett... The trouble with Pushing Tin, which has been directed by Mike Newell of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame, is that the drama, or comedy, whichever way you choose to read it, has been imposed on a New York Times article. Imposed in a very cliched way. And if you`re prepared to go along with the film for its first half, its second hour deteriorates into simply unbelievable situations - Russell giving zen therapy to Nick in the snow, Nick trying to invade the cockpit on a flight back from his father-in-law`s funeral, Nick trying to get back into Connie`s affections via mid-flight communications. But despite the limitations of script the performances are solid. John Cusack, lit so he looks seedy through most of the film, is convincing as always, Billy Bob Thornton looks charismatic for a change, Cate Blanchett shows the actress she really is by inhabiting the character of Connie and Angelina Jolie, in a vastly underdeveloped role, amazing in her physicalityDavid`s Comments:Terrific performances all round, an intriguing setup and setting, but the screenplay flounders towards the end and the last section is frankly unbelievable. But I liked this Hawksian group of ultra-competitive men - and one woman - depicted as working under the most stressful conditions.