Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Cocky hotshot workaholic air traffic controller Nick Falzone (an excellent performance by John Cusack) reigns supreme as the top dog at the airport he works at. However, Nick's heretofore sturdy hold on things gets knocked out of whack with the arrival of laid-back, but virile and imposing new transfer Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton in peak rugged form). Pretty soon Nick's personal and professional lives take a downward turn for the worse.Director Mike Newell astutely captures the fierce high pressure nature of a highly unusual and intense workplace, keeps the enjoyable and engrossing story moving along at a steady pace, and maintains a quirky tone that balances precariously between flaky comedy and thoughtful drama. The offbeat and original script by Glen and Les Charles offers some stinging insights on the intrinsic destructive futility of macho competitive male one-upmanship and the continual struggle for control in one's life, but falters a bit at the end by trying to wrap things up too neatly in a bow.Fortunately, the uniformly fine acting by the bang-up cast holds this movie together: Cusack and Thornton both do sterling work in their meaty roles, Cate Blanchett delivers a touching turn as Nick's fed-up and neglected wife Connie, and Angelina Jolie brings a scorching vampy allure to her juicy part as Russell's luscious young babe wife Mary, plus there are sound supporting contributions from Jake Weber as easygoing smartaleck Barry Plotkin, Kurt Fuller as the weary Ed Clabes, Vicki Lewis as tough bodybuilding buff Tina Leary, Matt Ross as the high strung Ron Hewitt, and Jerry Grayson as gruff superior Leo Morton. Gale Tattersall's crisp widescreen cinematography provides a pleasing polished look. Anne Dudley's harmonic score does the tuneful trick. Not a complete success, but still worth a watch for those seeking something out of the ordinary.

For those folks like me who wonder what anybody connected with his film could have been thinking, I have an answer.The Charles brothers undoubtedly decided to divvy up the writing duties. Since air traffic controlling is a complex area, one 'bro must have said to the other, "Hey, I've got an idea, you do the controller stuff and I'll write the romance part!" When the second bother protested being stuck with the technicalities and jargon (never mind FAA regulations), they decided to flip for who wrote what. The poor loser who got to research this complex and impossibly stressful profession became a bad sport and learned as little as possible. He stole scenes from "The Right Stuff","Top Gun" and "Return To Me", then said, "I'm done!"Meanwhile, the romance guy, having just returned from Maui, spent at least two hours thumbing through tried and true (trite) clichés and tossed several into the pot, making a mell of a hess stew. Nothing blended together, each element was half cooked and inedible.Well, no matter, how could a fast paced romance with proved great scenes (see aforementioned flicks) performed by proved fine actors miss?Well, it certainly did miss; both on a large and small scale. It missed in the outrageous flaunting of FAA and Air Traffic Control regulations, and in Angelina Jolie's lips, for God's sake! I just couldn't get past those smackers. Do you guys find kissing watermelon halves sexy? Maybe with salt.The insulting and appalling ending was for sure texted in from another vacation spot; for nothing in this movie was treated with knowledge or respect; most of all the stunned audience.

Pushing Tin is the most realistic movie in the history of movies, and I know it for sure. Billy Bob Thorton is a shaman who has moved to a strange new place - no one knows where it is, it is a mystery - with his wife (in the movie and in real life!) Angelina Jolie. John Cusack is a hot young air traffic controller, his character probably has a dumb nickname or something. Like "Shoop." He's in that other movie where he runs a record shop. He suucks. Anyways, he is afraid of Billy Bob or something, he seems very insecure. They're always making mean faces at each other from afar, and saying one-liners at each other and stuff. They're too wussy to actually fight it out like a couple of bros. The airplanes almost hit each other sometimes, don't panic, it's all good.

SPOILERS:John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton play two air traffic controllers who develop a sort of rivalry and are constantly trying to one up each other. Oh there's more to the movie-a lot-but that is the central focus.Pushing Tin sounded great on paper. It's one of those movies that has a great cast and a plot that sounds fascinating. But the movie as a whole is just OK. Not dreadful, definitely interesting but something seems a bit lacking. I wouldn't call this a great movie but it's moderately involving although it develops slowly.Cusack and Thornton both turn in good performances as do Jolie and Blanchet as the wives. I really really thought Billy Bob was incredible and he jumped out at me the most. It was weird watching this because it came out a long time ago and seeing Jolie and Blanchett was a kick. I thought they were both great in somewhat small roles though Cate's was larger then Jolie's. The part of the confused Nick could have been tailor made for Cusack but it is Billy Bob who comes close to stealing the film at times as the complex and quiet Russell.Pushing Tin, even though it had a great cast, with complex characters doing fascinating work, wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. First off, it takes a rather long time to get going(there were times the movie didn't really seem to have much of a plot) and even once it does get going it drags at times. And the brief bits of the air traffic controllers themselves, hard at work, were so involving I wished there were more of those scenes. Ultimately the rivalry between Nick and Russell was not all that interesting, it was more on the obnoxious side and came this close to actually being rather dull. It did become interesting when Nick goes to visit Russell in Colorado. In fact the scene by the water is just great. But it takes SO very long to get there and a lot of what happens along the way isn't terribly interesting. I didn't like Nick very much at all through most of the movie although that changed a bit after the above mentioned scene with Thornton. But there was a flatness to a lot of the movie, and a lot of it didn't seem to flow real well either. I was rather disappointed.Ultimatelty I wish the story had focused less on the power struggle of Nich and Russell and more on the relationships between all the people. The moments where the audience sees these people on the job are thrilling but there's not enough of them. And I wish there had been more characters and a different sort of main plot. I don't think this is dreadful or even bad. I would give it a 6 or 6.5 of 10. I don't think this is the type of film where one would turn it off mid stream but I do think it could have been better. Slightly above average is my vote.