A handful of Air Traffic Controllers in Phoenix manage a crowded sky and nurse an injured airliner back to earth. Kiefer Sutherland is an ace at the job, but he quit after one of his airplanes crashed. Now he's called back to help on a night full of tension.
And there IS a lot of tension after the introductory period that walks us through the character and their equipment. It's one of those movies in which, if anything can go wrong, it goes wrong. The equipment blows out, a goose flies into the radar fan, conflicts between the ATCs emerge, and so forth. Brief spurts of Morse code add to the mystery behind all that technology, but only two letters are heard in Morse: "s" and "u".
Actually it's a vast improvement over most airplane-in-jeopardy movies. First of all, we don't have a single airliner filled with diverse passengers whose back stories must be explored seriatim. Second, and most important, the ATC people are on the ground, where all human beings belong. Man was not meant to fly. I can't speak for women and children. In fact, all means of mass transport are suspect. I thought the driver on my last Greyhound bus looked a little odd.
The narrative comes through neatly and cleanly. It begins in an exploratory mode and ends in crisis and triumph, accompanied by generic music. The performances are all decent, with perhaps the best acting laid on by Robert Sean Leonard as Cruise, the competent and low-keyed controller who becomes rattled by too much stress. Sutherland's role is the flashier of the two. Also notable in minor roles are Alex Wexo as a pilot and especially Drew Snyder as the avuncular pilot of a stricken airliner. It would be so easy to overact, but Snyder does a fine job. Knowing his airplane and its passengers are doomed, he languidly tells Phoenix, "Keep us away from a city." But in any case it's really an ensemble movie.
The director does not indulge himself in razzle dazzle techniques. The film was shot on stilts, not by a hand-held camera wobbled around by a spazz. Even during the scenes of second-by-second action, the images remain steady.
And there IS a lot of tension after the introductory period that walks us through the character and their equipment. It's one of those movies in which, if anything can go wrong, it goes wrong. The equipment blows out, a goose flies into the radar fan, conflicts between the ATCs emerge, and so forth. Brief spurts of Morse code add to the mystery behind all that technology, but only two letters are heard in Morse: "s" and "u".
Actually it's a vast improvement over most airplane-in-jeopardy movies. First of all, we don't have a single airliner filled with diverse passengers whose back stories must be explored seriatim. Second, and most important, the ATC people are on the ground, where all human beings belong. Man was not meant to fly. I can't speak for women and children. In fact, all means of mass transport are suspect. I thought the driver on my last Greyhound bus looked a little odd.
The narrative comes through neatly and cleanly. It begins in an exploratory mode and ends in crisis and triumph, accompanied by generic music. The performances are all decent, with perhaps the best acting laid on by Robert Sean Leonard as Cruise, the competent and low-keyed controller who becomes rattled by too much stress. Sutherland's role is the flashier of the two. Also notable in minor roles are Alex Wexo as a pilot and especially Drew Snyder as the avuncular pilot of a stricken airliner. It would be so easy to overact, but Snyder does a fine job. Knowing his airplane and its passengers are doomed, he languidly tells Phoenix, "Keep us away from a city." But in any case it's really an ensemble movie.
The director does not indulge himself in razzle dazzle techniques. The film was shot on stilts, not by a hand-held camera wobbled around by a spazz. Even during the scenes of second-by-second action, the images remain steady.