Despite a promising cast, this movie falls short of being an interesting look into the lives and stressful jobs of air traffic controllers. Cusack stars as Nick Falzone, a top-notch air-traffic controller who has everything going for him. He's got a seemingly great home life, great wife and is able to deal with the stress that comes with his high paying job. Enter Russell Bell, (Thornton), an equally impressive "cool under pressure" controller, who comes to work alongside Nick and the competition begins, at least in Nick's mind. It doesn't help matters either when Nick suddenly sleeps with Russell's wife, who then turns around and confesses all to Russell. Nick's entire life becomes a mess of confusion, fear and paranoia that Russell is out to get him. This movie misses the mark because we, the viewers, are not given any clear reasons as to what motivates these characters. We are supposed to believe that Nick sleeps with Russell's wife either out of pity for her, too much to drink or to prove something over Russell, possibly even all three. Russell's wife (Jolie) is lonely and her plant died, thus her supposed motivation behind the affair. Russell disappears a lot and we are never told why or where to. And although we aren't left with any mystery around whether Russell is really a good guy or staging Nick's paranoia, we are never given any hindsight into why he is the way he is. If you can get past the fact that these characters act completely on impulse regarding every decision they make in their lives, you might enjoy this film. I wanted more.
Review of Pushing Tin
