The old cliche about crackling feedback on a radio being tuned into a recognisable melody is certainly true here, a film that opens with chaos and confusion, a breathless introductory montage of an air-controlling station, full of incomprehensible computer graphics, strange noisy men going through private rituals, confusing, though clearly important stakes. The film continues in a group vein, which is immensely wearing, as we watch a bunch of 30-somethings bond with their own coded language and gestures. Eventually, though, the film broadens out, becomes more tolerably conventional, as we are introduced to families, adultery, leisure time, Italian restaurants, even wide rugged Colorado spaces - ironically, the film also narrows its focus, as it analyses the inexplicable mythical stand-off between its two leads.
It is remarkable that something as phoney in conception as this can yield some genuine truths. The initial emphasis on the group and male cameraderie invoke Altman and Hawks, but Newell doesn't follow through (two other films it reminded me of, in the controllers' singular speed info-reading, were Herzog's HOW MUCH WOOD CAN A WOODCHUCK CHUCK and STROZZEK, two bitter fables about American capitalism)
The setting up of the initial conflict is too abrupt (some genius annoying you with his motorbike does not justify a life-destroying obsession, although the resulting, immature coffee-spilling overturn is very funny), and the endless reruns of crises in American masculinity, close, as ever, to homoeroticism, is rather wearisome, just as macho as Arnie, but with smarter words.
We are warned in a comic sequence involving schoolkids not to read too much into the metaphor (or is it simile?) of the ivory air-control tower, but it seems less about saving lives than the creation of a mythic space in which the central anxieties are played out. The struggle in the plane cockpit is just about plausible as a sign of Nick's mental breakdown, but the contrivance of the bomb takes the film out of character observation into the improbably fantastic, without the latter really becoming an extension of the former. The whole last third is fairly underwhelming anyway, probably because a film that is fuelled by John Cusack's mental and verbal agility must slow down when he does; the use of wives as extensions of the masculine game, though, seems less forgivable.
In spite of all these worries, I found PUSHING TIN a most enjoyable film. The characterisations are superb, and the initial irritations are revealed to be part of the protective armour these alienated characters wear. Because we believe (more or less) in the central quartet so strongly, in spite of the improbabilities of their relationships, the sadistic plot-twists growing out of character become exhilirating, as we squirm with the exquisite surprise of 'you can't!' inevitability.
The delineation of two madnesses, one hyperactively verbal, the other self-effacingly passive, allows for some great comic stand-offs; the film laughs at their immaturity while making it central to its momentum. Again, after some bogus attempts at atmosphere, the dialogue spits comic truth all over the place, so loose and true it might almost have been improvised, yet so tight and structured it could only have been written by craftsmen. Even icky cheerslike gestures are regularly deflated, undermining the cosier impulses.
Mike Newell is no Alexsei Balabanov, but he is adept at the jarring comic detail and the intricacies of close-knit groups threatened by outsiders, while there are a couple of excellent flourishes, such as our first sight of Nick out of the tower alone, speeding down the highway, anticipated by the whoosh of an aerial shot, a brilliantly ironic, explanatory movement.
Of course, for this kind of character- and dialogue-driven film to work, the acting must be spot on. Billy Bob Thornton reveals all the near-psychotic wearing down of life in a resigned smile, a crazed peace; but this is Cusack's film, as initially irritating and eventually winning as ever; his nervy logorrhea and preposterous macho gestures achieving a charming grace. I was going to take my first terrified flight this summer. Not now.
It is remarkable that something as phoney in conception as this can yield some genuine truths. The initial emphasis on the group and male cameraderie invoke Altman and Hawks, but Newell doesn't follow through (two other films it reminded me of, in the controllers' singular speed info-reading, were Herzog's HOW MUCH WOOD CAN A WOODCHUCK CHUCK and STROZZEK, two bitter fables about American capitalism)
The setting up of the initial conflict is too abrupt (some genius annoying you with his motorbike does not justify a life-destroying obsession, although the resulting, immature coffee-spilling overturn is very funny), and the endless reruns of crises in American masculinity, close, as ever, to homoeroticism, is rather wearisome, just as macho as Arnie, but with smarter words.
We are warned in a comic sequence involving schoolkids not to read too much into the metaphor (or is it simile?) of the ivory air-control tower, but it seems less about saving lives than the creation of a mythic space in which the central anxieties are played out. The struggle in the plane cockpit is just about plausible as a sign of Nick's mental breakdown, but the contrivance of the bomb takes the film out of character observation into the improbably fantastic, without the latter really becoming an extension of the former. The whole last third is fairly underwhelming anyway, probably because a film that is fuelled by John Cusack's mental and verbal agility must slow down when he does; the use of wives as extensions of the masculine game, though, seems less forgivable.
In spite of all these worries, I found PUSHING TIN a most enjoyable film. The characterisations are superb, and the initial irritations are revealed to be part of the protective armour these alienated characters wear. Because we believe (more or less) in the central quartet so strongly, in spite of the improbabilities of their relationships, the sadistic plot-twists growing out of character become exhilirating, as we squirm with the exquisite surprise of 'you can't!' inevitability.
The delineation of two madnesses, one hyperactively verbal, the other self-effacingly passive, allows for some great comic stand-offs; the film laughs at their immaturity while making it central to its momentum. Again, after some bogus attempts at atmosphere, the dialogue spits comic truth all over the place, so loose and true it might almost have been improvised, yet so tight and structured it could only have been written by craftsmen. Even icky cheerslike gestures are regularly deflated, undermining the cosier impulses.
Mike Newell is no Alexsei Balabanov, but he is adept at the jarring comic detail and the intricacies of close-knit groups threatened by outsiders, while there are a couple of excellent flourishes, such as our first sight of Nick out of the tower alone, speeding down the highway, anticipated by the whoosh of an aerial shot, a brilliantly ironic, explanatory movement.
Of course, for this kind of character- and dialogue-driven film to work, the acting must be spot on. Billy Bob Thornton reveals all the near-psychotic wearing down of life in a resigned smile, a crazed peace; but this is Cusack's film, as initially irritating and eventually winning as ever; his nervy logorrhea and preposterous macho gestures achieving a charming grace. I was going to take my first terrified flight this summer. Not now.