Details:

John Cusack

Billy Bob Thornton

Cate Blanchett

Angelina Jolie

Director: Mike Newell

Date Viewed: 4/24/99

Score: +

The Review: It would seem that someone is looking around and saying, "what profession or job has not yet been portrayed in a movie? OK, this month..., let's pick air traffic controllers!" Huh?! But it works, more or less. Almost anyone can describe what an ATC does -- in their own jargon, they "push tin" -- and can recognize the responsibility and pressure of the job.

We meet John Cusack demonstrating that he is a hot-shot ATC. We meet the curious and bizarre crew of characters who work in adjacent seats and screens, and we sample their rapid-fire world. This movie tingles -- it quickly and repeatedly shifts back and forth between manic and depressive phases of both characters and plot. The inevitable crisis comes not with mid-life, but with the arrival of the new hot-shot in town (Billy Bob Thornton, who steals the show with a wry grin, quiet humor and a contemporary version of true grit). This is someone crazy enough to have stood on the runway beneath the path of a landing 747 to "understand" wake turbulence. Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie are in strong supporting roles as their spouses, respectively. But marriage is just as rapid-fire as the jobs: "She's a one. I'm a three. But remember so-and-so? She was a five!"

The opening credits roll over a marvelous sequence in which the crowded skies over NYC and New Jersey are peppered with criss-crossing planes at various altitudes and densities that initially seem reasonable and unremarkable, and eventually escalates to become obvious fantasy. This latter feeling occasionally intrudes -- suspension of disbelief -- and one wonders whether the film's hijinks are at all believable. Perhaps a romantic comedy, perhaps a dramatic comedy: either way this movie is more serious than funny. But watchable.

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