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The theory of flight >> Mike Newell has air traffic controllers Pushing Tin by MATTHEW HAYS
Pushing Tin takes on an unusual milieu, one that hasn't been focused upon before cinematically: the screenplay was inspired by a 1996 New York Times Magazine feature about the ultra-stressful world of air traffic controllers. The movie has John Cusack as a driven control-freak, the hot shot of the New York air-traffic controlling crowd. He speed-talks his way through an average day, troubleshooting the air so that, even in the world's most airplane-congested space, no two vehicles collide. But Cusack's world is shattered when Billy Bob Thornton, a mysterious controller with a mythic background, arrives to join the team. Thornton threatens to steal Cusack's mantle as the coolest controller on the block. He has the hot, adoring wife (Angelina Jolie), the Native blood (he dons a feather while on the job) and the air-traffic-controlling instinct which always appears to be one step ahead of Cusack's. A loopy idea An odd set-up for a movie, but that's precisely what attracted Newell to the screenplay in the first place. "It certainly loops the loop a lot," Newell says from his London home. "It's a film that doesn't remain the same. It begins quite realistically, about jocks competing. Then it turns into a light relationship movie. Then back to jocks again, but much darker. But all the while, the script made me laugh, which was the big draw. It's a very, very funny film." With the high-stress occupation at the film's centre, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think of the whole thing as a once-removed meditation on the vocation of filmmaking, another highly competitive field populated by control-freak obsessives. "I actually didn't really consider that at the time," Newell says. "I think if one focuses too much on the metaphor, you can go wrong. The underlying factor here is stress. And everyone thinks their own job is the most stressful--it doesn't matter if you're a gardener or a brain surgeon. Stress is a great unifying factor." In addition to Thornton, Cusack and Jolie, the film's cast features an unrecognizable Cate Blanchett, the Australian-trained actress who, fresh from her Oscar-nominated turn as Queen Elizabeth I, plays Cusack's Long Island wife--accent and all--to a T. "What an astoundingly gifted cast," Newell gushes. "Cusack and Thornton went to air traffic controller school and took a basic course. They saw the intense stress this job required and then built their characters from there. The thing they really worked on was the speed-talking. You have to speed talk to do that job." Cinematic gymnastics The screenplay for Pushing Tin, by brothers Glen and Les Charles (Cheers), begins with a light comic veneer, but soon takes an intensely dark turn, becoming a Neil LaBute-ish take on obsessive alpha-male competition. Cusack's onscreen breakdown is truly disturbing, but Newell insists he wanted the actor to capture a cartoonish feel with the role. "I thought of the Road Runner cartoons. You know, Wile E. Coyote runs after him, goes off a cliff and then keeps running on air until he realizes that he's only got air beneath him and then falls. That's what this character reminded me of." What audiences may have a tougher time swallowing is the screenplay's final shift--and this is where Four Weddings and a Funeral comes in--when the Cusack-Thornton conflict subsides and Cusack's romantic troubles must be resolved. "I recognize that everyone may see this conclusion as unrealistic," Newell admits, "but it's what everyone really wants to have happen. I intended for Cusack's character to be a comic everyman. I felt people would accept the ending because, without it, the film was incomplete as a light comedy. "Yes, there are a lot of loops here. And I wonder if the audience will loop those loops with me. It's quite a strenuous film, really. It requires a lot of gymnastics." Pushing Tin opens Friday, April 23
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If director Mike Newell's oeuvre seems to reflect a split personality--and with lightweight comedies like Four Weddings and a Funeral and harsher works like Donnie Brasco on the list, one could make that argument--his latest film appears to embrace both poles of the director's makeup.