Cusack, Thornton do convincing job of "Pushing Tin" (movie review)

"You land a million planes safely, then you have one little mid-air and you never hear the end of it".  - New York Tracon Controller

This is second in my series of aviation-related movie reviews.  This time around it’s “Pushing Tin”, a 1999 comedy starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton as air traffic controllers and Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie as their wives.  This came out around the same time as “Ground Control” with Keifer Sutherland, and there hasn’t been an ATC related movie since, nor do I suspect there will be for a while.

When I first heard about this movie I had high hopes as it had a pretty talented cast and well known successful writers.  Glen and Les Charles were mostly known for their writing in the hit TV show “Cheers”.  The story was based around an article about some controllers at New York TRACON, (where the movie is based), and had controllers working with the director to try to get it right.  The ATC aspect of the movie was done as right as can be expected in a dramatization.  Of course there was extra “phraseology” by the actors that would never be uttered in real life.

Here’s the trailer:

The first thing that got my attention and I thought was really interesting was when the camera goes into the mind of the character Mr. Cusack plays, Nick “The Zone” Falzone.  Yes, many or most of us have nicknames, I’m often one of those that assign or devise those names.  Anyway, the way the camera goes into his eyes and shows the 3D thought processes is intriguing.  You not only hear his transmissions, but also other random thoughts floating through his head in the background, and then when attention is needed on an airplane it lights up.  This would be “the scan”, where we are looking in all directions, thinking of several different things at once, and then prioritizing.  This pictorial depiction was the best way to describe it I’ve seen on film.
 

The way the actors ripped through the ATC clearances was impressive.  It’s one thing to act; it’s another thing to be able to pull off what they did as convincingly as they did.  They were coached well and obviously practiced a lot.  The ensemble cast in general were a good mix of the varying types of personalities that exist in the ATC world.  From the nervous and frantic types like Mr. Cusacks character, to the laid back “less is more” types like Mr. Thorntons character.  One of the cast members, Vicki Lewis, even had a father who was an air traffic controller.

Some specifics: controllers singing on the sector?  Yep.  The flight strips, strip buckets, sunflower seeds, the occasional jabs at pilots – it’s all true.  I’ve never really heard the term “pushing tin”, maybe “slinging tin” like hotcakes, or definitely “moving metal”.  “Pushing tin” sounds more like what we’d say to a non-aviation type.  Also “going down the pipes” is more commonly called “going down the tubes” or some variation of a toilet term.  The questions and terms when in casual conversation with the non-aviation world this movie hit on the head, like “work in a tower somewhere?”, “sit around all day talking” (usually by pilots), and of course “isn’t that job stressful?”

The dress code has changed since this movie came out, you won’t see hockey jerseys, sweats, or t-shirts anymore.  And this so-called “rule” of not sleeping with another controllers wife?  I think that pretty much applies to any occupation, but then again, we’re talking about Angelina Jolie here.  Ironically, after hooking up on this movie, Ms. Jolie and Mr. Thornton got married.

Something that was referred to repeatedly was a scene that I’m not so sure of: standing under a 747 and getting thrown around by its wake turbulence.  I’m not buying it, can anyone corroborate this?  Also, the singing on the frequency and denying an airplane clearance until you can talk to a passenger, in this case the controllers wife, uh no.  Scenes like that one brought this movie into the silly category and made it go on about 20 minutes longer than it should have.  Also, the depiction of a controller having an operational error, or correctly referred to in the movie as a “deal”, and then getting right back on position just to have another?  Unrealistic.

This movie had a lot of potential, but in the end the need for the director and/or writers to broaden the appeal to a wider crowd (as in transforming it almost into a “chick flick”) put it in the “average” category of movie, some have argued “less than average”.  It got 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is sort of rotten, with the consensus: “Solid performances by the leads, but the generic ending needs help.”  But it’s not a total waste of time, just put aside the “fluff” and you’ll enjoy it.