Pushing Tin (Film Review)

1999 20th Century Fox
Directed by: Mike Newell; Written by: Glen Charles and Les Charles
Starring: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, and Jake Weber
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 124 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 4/10

John Cusack is an air traffic controller at the top of his game. When he hangs out with his crew of air traffic controller buddies, he is essentially their king...until Billy Bob Thornton arrives. While Cusack is stuck with a lame and unattractive Cate Blanchett, Thornton shows up with his beautiful and enigmatic wife, Angelina Jolie. I am being extremely sarcastic in regard to Cate Blanchett's personality and appearance, but for all Cusack's character cares, it might as well be true. When Thornton shows up at the air traffic controller tower, Cusack just can't handle his detached coolness. He has to somehow beat Billy Bob. Instead...he beats himself. I guess.
Pushing Tin, with its high pedigree cast, director, and writers is setup for greatness. It seems to be, at the least, a cult classic in the making. Instead, the film crashes, not even with a caustic explosion, but a dull thud, like an empty drone craft in the Siberian tundra. On second thought, that's probably the best kind of crash, though probably the least cinematic. This is supposed to be a movie, after all. Little works here, other than the fact that the talented cast is indeed onscreen for the entirety of its bloated runtime. There's a distant, far off sheen of greatness here, always threatening to break through the film's cloud cover of mediocrity, but never finding its way. I'm out of metaphors, and I don't think this film deserves anymore of them anyway. It's a frustrating misfire.