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Pushing Tin
USA 1999
Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Nick Falzone is the top controller at NYC-New Jersey air-traffic control centre TRACON. When new controller Russell Bell arrives, Nick feels his supremacy is challenged. At a barbecue, Nick and his wife Connie meet Russell's wife Mary. Nick wins $100 from Russell in a basketball contest and the rivalry grows.
Later Nick meets a distraught Mary: Russell has gone off on a trip and her favourite plant has died. Nick takes her to dinner and they sleep together. Mary confesses this to Russell; Russell tells Nick he forgives him, and hints that he is interested in Connie, making Nick paranoid. At the funeral of Connie's father, Nick admits his infidelity. Later a bomb threat is phoned in to TRACON; Nick and Russell remain to land the incoming planes, but Nick is depicted as a coward in the television coverage while Russell is lionised. Connie leaves Nick. He nearly causes two mid-air collisions. Russell and Mary leave for Colorado. Nick follows them. Nick and Russell end their conflict by standing together on a runway as a 747 flies over them. Nick goes back to work at TRACON and convinces Connie to give their marriage another try.
Review
The unjaundiced outsider's eye that British director Mike Newell brought to lower-middle-class Italian-American culture in Donnie Brasco is again in evidence in Pushing Tin, a social comedy rich in appealing characterisations, dense dialogue and delightful visuals. The film's plot might be overcooked and too crowded with improbable incidents to be coherent, but this at least reflects the film-makers' ambition to make a comedy aimed at an adult audience. Whatever its flaws, any movie that can offer Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett performing a duet of 'Muskrat Love' while Angelina Jolie wraps herself around Thornton, python-like, has an irresistibly eccentric spirit.
Pushing Tin tries to pack three different movies into its ungainly 124 minutes, but Newell can't quite get the difficult combination to pay off. Based on an article about the hyper-competitive world of air-traffic controllers, the rapid-fire script by brothers Glen and Les Charles (creators of Cheers) is a misbegotten child of one of Hollywood's newfangled 'synergies'. So we begin with the jargon-thick world of TRACON, essentially a roomful of men playing video games with thousands of lives at stake. Newell vividly depicts Nick and Russell's workplace as an arena of psychological warfare where surface camaraderie barely masks fear and hostility. In one sequence we seem to leap inside Nick's radar screen to see the blips as moving objects in 3-D, as Nick and his colleagues must do.
Newell and the Charleses seem more interested in the suburban comedy of manners that grows out of this setting. Manhattan is often seen in movies but few film-makers (beyond native son Hal Hartley) venture into the New Jersey and Long Island hinterlands where much of New York's middle classes live. Saturated with that distinctively Northeastern watery haze, this is a landscape so drab that when we first see Nick drive home from work he mistakenly parks in the driveway of the house next door. But Newell is not out to ridicule the private lives of the controllers, more to demonstrate their almost surreal isolation. Like Blanchett's eerily convincing Jersey-girl accent, the arriviste leisurewear at the backyard barbecue - a thicket of silk and velvet shirts - is deadly accurate, just a millimetre short of parody.
A control freak in an Adidas sweatsuit, constantly self-ironising, Nick Falzone is the perfect role for the twitchy, intellectual style of John Cusack. When Mary Bell, played by Jolie as a luscious New Age sphinx, asks him acidly, "Are there people who find you charming?" he rakishly replies: "Well, they pretend because I try so hard." As enjoyable as Thornton is at issuing low-rent gnostic wisdom, Russell is really only Nick's foil. The conflict between them has its amusing moments - when Nick drives like a maniac, seeking to rattle Russell, the latter simply falls asleep. But after the romantic quadrangle gives way to a predictable fable of mano a mano combat, Pushing Tin reaches its least interesting narrative level. No movie that's this unsure about what it wants to be can be considered a success. But from the terrific ensemble cast to the meticulous cinematography and subtle score, Pushing Tin is one of the most consistently enjoyable US films of the year. Hollywood could use more failures like this one.
Credits
- Producer
- Art Linson
- Screenplay
- Glen Charles
- Les Charles
- Based upon the article Something's Got to Give by Darcy Frey
- Director of Photography
- Gale Tattersall
- Editor
- Jon Gregory
- Production Designer
- Bruno Rubeo
- Music/Music Conductor/Orchestrations
- Anne Dudley
- ©Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Monarchy Enterprises B.V. and Regency Entertainment (USA), Inc.
- Production Companies
- Fox 2000 Pictures and Regency Enterprises present a Linson Films production
- Executive Producers
- Alan Greenspan
- Michael Flynn
- Production Co-ordinators
- Gina Fowler
- LA Unit:
- Page Rosenberg-Marvin
- Toronto 2nd Unit:
- Angela Ryan
- New York 2nd Unit:
- Shell Hecht
- Co-ordinators
- Minneapolis:
- Julie Hartley
- Chicago:
- Brady Breen
- Vancouver:
- Bev White
- Unit Production Managers
- Joseph Boccia
- LA Unit:
- David Witz
- New York 2nd Unit:
- Jan Foster
- Location Managers
- Marty Dejczak
- LA Unit:
- Richard Davis
- Aerial Units:
- Heidi Topper
- Tamra Raven
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Michael Saxton
- Co-ordinator:
- Giulia Maura
- 2nd Unit Director
- Philip C. Pfeiffer
- Assistant Directors
- David Webb
- Bruno Bryniarski
- Kathleen Hallam Kibzey
- Christy Garland
- LA Unit:
- Mike Topoozian
- Bob Wagner
- Toronto 2nd Unit:
- Tom Quinn
- Michele Rakich
- Script Supervisors
- Mimi Wolch
- LA Unit:
- Ira Hurwitz
- Toronto 2nd Unit:
- Angela Mastronardi
- Casting
- Toronto:
- Ross Clydesdale
- Voice:
- Brendan Donnison
- Loop De Loop
- Directors of Photography
- 2nd Unit:
- Philip C. Pfeiffer
- LA Unit:
- Matthew F. Leonetti
- New York 2nd Unit:
- Harry Lake
- Camera Operators
- Harald K. Ortenburger
- Candide R. Franklyn
- Steadicam
- Candide R. Franklyn
- Spacecam
- Dylan M. Gross
- Ralph Mendoza
- Video Image
- Scott M. Warner
- Video
- Researcher:
- Nancy Quinlan
- Producer:
- Lorraine Clark
- Visual Effects Supervisor
- Boyd Shermis
- Visual Effects Consultant
- Michael J. McAlister
- Visual Effects Editor
- Russ Woolnough
- Visual Effects
- Blue Sky/VIFX
- President/Senior Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Richard Hollander
- Visual Effects Producer:
- Joyce Weisiger
- CG Supervisor:
- Bryan Hirota
- R & D Supervisor:
- Bill Dietrich
- 2D Supervisor:
- Sean McPherson
- Digital Texture Supervisor:
- Ruth Caspary
- 3D Artists:
- Gary Abrahamian
- Robb Gardner
- Douglas Harsch
- Stu Mintz
- Mark Perry
- Chris Romano
- Robert Roux
- Derek Spears
- 2D Artists:
- Hunter Athey
- Harry Lam
- Kelly Fischer
- Lisa Pollard
- Laura Hanigan
- Marc Rubone
- Jessica Harris
- Cybele Sierra
- Antonio Torres
- Serkan Zelele
- Rimas Juchneviccius
- Texture Painters:
- Nousha Emami
- Roger Kupelian
- Diana Miao
- Travis Price
- Marta Rocio
- Rob Schultz
- Dottie Starling
- Inferno Artists:
- John Heller
- Sean Lee
- Cesar Romero
- Matte Painting:
- Meg Freeman
- David Palmer
- Lisa Kshatraya
- Digital Production Executive Producer:
- Lee Berger
- Production Managers:
- Daphne Dentz
- Dan Foster
- Digital Production Managers:
- Gene Kozicki
- Perry Petrzilka
- Visual Effects Location Producers:
- Jo Ann Knox
- Robert Grassmere
- Directors of Photography:
- Jim Weisiger
- Don Devine
- 3D Models
- Viewpoint Studios Datalabs International
- Motion Control
- Motion Control Rental Services
- Additional Compositing
- The Post Group's Digital Film Group
- Special Effects
- Supervisor:
- Michael Kavanagh
- Key:
- Daniel White
- LA Unit, Co-ordinator:
- David Kelsey
- Video Graphics Animator
- Tony P. Rudenko
- Computer Graphic Displays/Video Production
- Video Image
- Associate Editor
- Ian Seymour
- Art Directors
- John Dondertman
- LA Unit:
- Keith Neeley
- Set Designers
- Elis Lam
- Gordon White
- Set Decorators
- Steve Shewchuk
- Clive Thomasson
- Illustrations
- Guy Dyas
- Scenic Artist
- Ian Nelmes
- Pre-visualisation
- Meher Gourjian
- Storyboards
- Ray Harvie
- Costume Designer
- Marie-Sylvie Deveau
- Costume Supervisors
- Susan MacLeod
- Toronto 2nd Unit:
- Richard Krogh
- Wardrobe Master
- Andre Schulz
- Make-up
- Key Artist:
- Christine Hart
- Artist:
- Mario G. Cacioppo
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- David R. Beecroft
- Stylist:
- Karola Dirnberger
- Wigs
- Renate Leuschner
- Title Design
- Chris Allies
- Main Title Sequence Design
- Imaginary Forces
- Kyle Cooper
- Title Opticals
- Custom Film Effects
- Music Performed by
- Piano/Synthesizers:
- Anne Dudley
- Harmonica:
- Brendan Power
- Music Editor
- Michael Connell
- Drum Programming
- Christian L. Henson
- Music Engineers
- Roger Dudley
- Steve Price
- Mix Engineer
- Nick Wollage
- Music/Vocal Coach
- David Warrack
- Music Consultant
- Bob Last
- Soundtrack
- "Memories Are Made of This" by Richard Dehr, Terry Gilkyson, Frank Miller; "Soul Shifter" by/performed by Adam Hamilton, Chris Seefried; "Dancing with Myself" by Billy Idol, Tony James, performed by Billy Idol; "Radar Love" by George Kooymans, Barry Hay, performed by Golden Earring; "The King and I" by/performed by Marc Ferrari, Paul Taylor; "Leading the Way" by Paul Pritchard; "Why Don't You Go Back to the Woods" by Edgar Meyer, performed by Jerry Douglas, Russ Barenberg, Edgar Meyer; "Whatever Will Be Will Be (Que sera, sera)" by Ray Evans, Jay Livingston, performed by Sly & The Family Stone; "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" by Randy Bachman, performed by Bachman-Turner Overdrive; "Leavin' on Your Mind" by Michael Webb Pierce, Wayne P. Walker, performed by Patsy Cline; "Return to Me" by Danny DiMinno, Carmen Lombardo, performed by Dean Martin; "Rock, Rhythm & Blues" by Derek Holt, Gary Moberley; "Biancha" by Dick Walter; "Che gelida manina" from the opera "La Bohème" by Giacomo Puccini; "All the Way" by Jimmy Van Heusen, Sammy Cahn; "Santa Lucia" by Teodoro Cottrau; "If" by David Gates; "Muskrat Love" by Willis Alan Ramsey; "Folk Funk" by Bosco Kante, Tracy Robinson; "She's a Lady" by Paul Anka, performed by Tom Jones; "Tomorrow" (from the Broadway musical "Annie") by Martin Charnin, Charles Strouse; "Weather Watch" by Nigel Beaham-Powell, Bella Russell; "Jingle Bells" (trad); "Boots of Spanish Leather" by Bob Dylan; "I'm Not Running Anymore" by/performed by John Mellencamp
- Production Sound Mixer
- D. Bruce Carwardine
- LA Unit Sound Mixer
- Art Rochester
- Re-recording Mixers
- Dean Humphries
- Tim Cavagin
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Sue Baker
- Additional Dialogue Editor
- Ross Adams
- Sound Effects Editor
- Colin Miller
- ADR
- Editor:
- Derek Holding
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jason Swanscott
- Dianne Greaves
- Editor:
- Jacques Leroide
- Air Traffic Control Consultants
- Thomas F. Zaccheo
- Sheila McCombe
- Aircraft Adviser
- Mike Potter
- Fly Fishing Consultant
- Don McLean
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Rick Forsayeth
- LA Unit:
- Doug Coleman
- New York 2nd Unit:
- Jery Hewitt
- Animal Wranglers
- Richard A. Parker
- LA Unit:
- Tom McDonnell
- Aerial Co-ordinator/Pilot
- New York 2nd Unit:
- Al Cerullo
- Cast
- John Cusack
- Nick Falzone
- Billy Bob Thornton
- Russell Bell
- Cate Blanchett
- Connie Falzone
- Angelina Jolie
- Mary Bell
- Jake Weber
- Barry Plotkin
- Vicki Lewis
- Tina Leary
- Matt Ross
- Ron Hewitt
- Kurt Fuller
- Ed Clabes
- Jerry Grayson
- Leo Morton
- Michael Willis
- Pat Feeney
- Philip Akin
- Paul
- Mike O'Malley
- Pete
- Neil Crone
- Tom
- Matt Gordon
- Ken
- Joe Pingue
- Mark
- Shaun Majumder
- new controller
- Dwight McFee
- veteran controller
- Rob Smith
- Bob
- Catherine Lloyd Burns
- Tanya Hewitt
- Star Jasper
- Julie Clabes
- Molly Price
- Crystal Plotkin
- Sarah Knowlton
- Beverly
- Kiersten Warren
- Karen
- Andrew Dan
- diner cook
- Tennyson Loeh
- diner waitress
- Michael Hyatt
- Trudy
- Jillian Cameron
- Falzone girl
- Michael Cameron
- Falzone boy
- Carolyn Scott
- Mrs Connor
- Cody Jones
- Timmy
- Jimmy Ruderman
- scared student
- Paul Brogren
- supermarket clerk
- Gene Dinovi
- Enzo Sorrento
- Emile Belcourt
- tenor
- Robyn Stevan
- Sara
- Amanda Delaney
- bodybuilder
- Ferne Downey
- Sorrento customer
- Joe Matheson
- announcer
- Gina Clayton
- Dynajet flight attendant
- Matthew Bennett
- Dynajet steward
- Jim Millington
- Dynajet captain
- Ramona Milano
- TV reporter
- Ray Paisley
- K-9 cop
- Rita Tuckett
- Lady Sparta
- Bob Bidaman
- near-miss pilot
- Dick Callahan
- TRACON guard
- Brian King
- honeymoon man
- Julia Paton
- honeymoon woman
- Jenny Parsons
- flight attendant
- John Lefebvre
- pilot
- John Robinson
- co-pilot
- Todd Faithfull
- Tina's boyfriend
- Richard Bauer
- Jim Codrington
- William Colgate
- Craig Eldridge
- Peter Graham
- Peter James Howarth
- Ray Kahnert
- Robert B. Kennedy
- Shawn Lawrence
- Markus Parilo
- Martin Roach
- Jonathan Whittaker
- pilot voices
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- 20th Century Fox (UK)
- 11,135 feet
- 123 minutes 43 seconds
- Dolby digital
- Colour/Prints by
- DeLuxe
- Super 35 [2.35:1]