Pushing Tin

Blokey? Pushing Tin is about a mob of air traffic controllers, among whom there's only one woman, and she spends her time pumping iron.

The gun controller is Zone played by John Cusack. He's married happily to Connie (Australia's Cate Blanchette) but becomes challenged when a quiet, mysterious and extremely clever controller called Russell (Billy Bob Thornton) turns up for work, along with his young buxom wife, played by Jon Voight's daughter Angeline Jolie.

These controllers manage the busiest air space on the planet, the contorted, convoluted, cramped air near New York. They're competitive and strained and play the whole thing for laughs, even if they do realise how serious having a bad day at work might be.

However It's unlikely Pushing Tin will make it onto the in flight movie list. The thought of a mob of adrenaline junkies competing with each other to see how close they can pack in the jumbo you might be sweating in, isn't likely to alleviate the fears of those in the nervous flyers club.

But what is Pushing Tin really about? There are plenty of side issues in what is a fairly densely packed script but the penultimate conclusion of the film involves the two heavyweight tin pushers resolving their tensions with a particularly dangerous and reckless act to do with very large aircraft turbulence.

These two blokes, being what they are, end up bruised and busted but quite a bit saner, having had, I would suggest, a demeaning experience calculated to get their little problems into perspective. Get your arse nearly blown off and it's damn hard to take anything else very seriously.

But there must be more to Pushing Tin than whacky extreme psycho mumbo jumbo Jumbo Jet therapy if it's as good as I've been saying, and it's to do with personalities and close ups.

Pushing Tin is absolutely stuffed with faces and in particular the visages of John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchette. If you've ever wondered why so many of us spend so much time at the pictures then reflect on how interesting and complex good actors and their expressions can be if they are given (air) space.

Pushing Tin pushes face, throwing in a good bit of titillating tension. Fast cuts, rushing airplanes and the occasional near miss is combined with just the right mix of emotional blackmail.

It's a shame about the cornball ending but in the end I decided that I had even enjoyed that. It was a reasonable trade off for what was a bumpy flight.