What the hell? Someone thought that THIS passed for a plot? I swear, NOTHING happens in "Pushing Tin". The entire movie is little more than two hours of people talking about disjointed topics. The movie isn't even so bad that it's good; it's just bad. John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie are completely wasted. How on earth could director Mike Newell go from something as good as "Donnie Brasco" to this? At least he went on to direct "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".Look, there are lots of good movies out there. The very same year in which "Pushing Tin" came out, John Cusack also starred in "Being John Malkovich" and "Cradle will Rock", while Cate Blanchett starred in "The Talented Mr. Ripley". This one, however, is NOT worth your time.

Pushing tin is a confusing piece of work. I was under the impression it would be a story about air traffic controllers, but it is not. This is in fact a pure love/romance drama, and the traffic controller setting could really be swapped with anything else - it plays a very minor role and does not contribute anything interesting to the story at all. I believe the story writer wanted to make it attractive to a broader audience (not only girls) and decided to throw aviation into the mix to lure their boyfriends into the cinemas. A clever trick maybe, but an ugly one. Actors are OK though, Thornton in particular, so if you are a fan of love/romance dramas, maybe give it a try. Otherwise Ground Control, which is a REAL movie about air controllers, will be a much better choice.

I like John Cusack and Billy Bob Thorton. Both are fine actors and I've enjoyed their films over the years.This, however, is a travesty. Easily rates as one of the worst films I ever sat through. It is one of those you keep expecting it to get good and it never does.The characters were annoying and the plot insipid. Angelina Jolie's character has outright repulsive. In fact, there was even moments were you could tell the actors were desperately trying to make a scene work, but couldn't, because the story was garbage.Do yourself a favor and skip this one.

Air traffic control isn't so much the subject matter of this film as a metaphor for the life of its main protagonist (ably portrayed by John Cusack) which slowly begins to crumble when a new controller (Billy Bob Thornton) threatens his status as kingpin of the control centre. As such, the film might not quite be what you'd expect, and can't seem to decide whether it's a comedy or a drama while strangely never seeming to be a combination of the two.Air traffic control is apparently one of the most stressful jobs around and, as such, you'd think there'd be a rich seam worth mining, but I can't recall many – if any – other films that use it as the core of their story. I suppose the makers should be given credit for delivering a different setting for their tale, but they really should have worked harder on the character development than they do here. Cusack's character arc is so predictable it's practically a straight line from point A to point B while Thornton isn't really given any character beyond mysterious stranger – with an occasional touch of the mystical thrown in – of few words. This predictability – and the impossibility of getting under the skin of any other character than Cusack's (whose methods of expressing his insecurities, it has to be said, make him difficult to like) – make the film something of a long haul.