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Pushing Tin Starring: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie. Dir: Mike Newell Everything is a test of endurance and memory. Even the smallest slip requires an almost superhuman effort to catch up. That's the environment in which Nick Falzone (John Cusack) thrives, and ultimately fails, in Pushing Tin, a tense, dark comedy about obsession and competition. Everything is a friendly competition to Nick. Friendly, because he always wins. He lines up his planes perfectly, never missing a connection, and still finding time to make small talk with the pilots. When he gets home from work and fools around with his loving wife Connie (Cate Blanchett), and pledges to spend more time with his two kids. His co-workers call him "The Zone" for his legendary powers of concentration and memory, and his family adores him. His life is charmed. Enter Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton). Immovable object, meet irresistible force. Russell is pure steel -- never moved, never scratched. And inwardly, he shares with Nick the same need to "win" at everything. And he does. It's not even close. The tension between these two kicks in immediately, and stays intense until the very end. One by one, Nick loses everything, dragging professional competition into his personal life, and sinking as low as he can simply to win. Russell charms everyone at work with his amazing ability to bring planes in on time, even if it means he takes a few risks (he really "pushes tin," get it?). Co-worker Tina (a newly buff Vicki Lewis) says Russell is "interesting," Nick doesn't think twice about it, until Connie uses the same word to describe Russell after a party. Nick is now competing with Russell both personally and professionally, something he has never experienced. For the first time, he loses his cool. If each new low makes the audience cringe, it makes Nick cringe even more. When he first realizes winning the favor of Russell's wife Mary (Angelina Jolie) means he has cheated on Connie for the first time, Nick seems as if he's looking at himself from the outside, amazed at his lapse and unable to explain it to himself or anyone else. And Russell just feeds the flame, calculating the next move in a decidedly logical and unaffected manner. Thornton gives Russell the perfect understated edge to match Cusack's nice-guy-gone-wrong blustering. The more convincingly Cusack goes over the edge, the calmer Thornton becomes. And Cusack remains likable, even at Nick's worst moments. The audience squirms because they don't want to see him lose. There are enough funny moments to keep you from wanting to either kill yourself or Nick. Still, by the time this tension reaches its peak, it's difficult to imagine resolving it. And that's where the trouble comes in. When Nick hits bottom, there is nowhere to go but up, and up is what Hollywood does best. Nick manages to get his life back on track in ten minutes after spending the previous hour and a half screwing it up. The sappy ending could have been much worse, with everybody holding hands and becoming best friends. The writers and director at least resisted that far, at least. But his epiphany in his final competition with Russell is somewhat questionable, and his recovery seems a bit too immediate. Too much sunshine after so long in the dark. It doesn't ruin the movie, but it certainly deflates a wonderfully unsettling set up. -Nick |
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