Directed by Mike Newell

Writing credits: Darcy Frey (NY TIMES article), Glen Charles

127 minutes

Nick Falzone, a.k.a. "The Zone" (John Cusack) is the self-appointed best air traffic controller in the business, an air jockey who handles traffic at at New York's Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), which handles up to 7,000 flights a day into and out of the three New York City area airports. Best in the business, that is, until Russell Bell, an inscrutable import from Denver by way of Albuquerque and Phoenix, comes roaring in on his motorcycle, thus triggering a mano-a-mano game of "Mine's bigger," fueled by caffeine and liquor.

Bell, a combination of Chief Dan George and Yoda, seems to have the upper hand until Nick becomes attracted to Bell's 19-year-old sex bomb wife (Angelina Jolie, looking like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark on a particularly bad day) and falls into bed with her. This triggers mucho guilto on Nick's part, and his growing paranoia that Bell is retaliating by targeting his own wife, Connie (Cate Blanchett, once again completely and perfectly transformed, this time into a lime green chenille-wearing Long Island housewife), jeopardizes his marriage, his career, and his very sanity.

Cusack departs here for the first time since THE GRIFTERS from his trademark boyishly adorable charmer, with great success. I have been a fan of Cusack since SIXTEEN CANDLES, and this is his first role where that charmer is almost never in evidence. Nick is, quite frankly, a jerk. He's oblivious to his kid's problems, he takes his gorgeous wife for granted, jumping into bed with another controller's wife, merely because she has a chest you could read Shakespeare from and the lips of an inflatable doll -- and he instigates this completely unnecessary pissing contest with his perceived rival. I really wanted to like this character. He looks like Cusack, he sounds like Cusack, but he is, quite frankly, just not likeable. That's the kind of chops Cusack brings to this role.

He's a difficult man to steal a picture from, but Thornton, who impresses me more with every role, does it easily. Cool, laconic and unflappable in a role that at one time would have been played by Scott Glenn, he exudes both a barely-suppressed craziness and a simmering sexuality we haven't seen in him previously. He LOOKS like a guy who would stand right under a 747 as it lands.

The women fare somewhat less well because they are more broadly drawn (no pun intended). Blanchett, completely unrecognizable in Long Island big hair and contemporary dress, has a fluttery nervous tension that's palpable, particularly in a scene involving a conversation with other controllers' wives, who seem to be all of Mercedes Ruehl's old pals from MARRIED TO THE MOB (and it seems that Long Islanders are one of the last ethnic groups it's permissible to portray stereotypically).

Angelina Jolie, a vibrantly talented young actress whose breasts seem to be called on to do most of the acting for her in this film, is a woefully incongruous figure, her intelligent manner of speaking contrasting with her trashy, low-cut dress and running mascara. She's capable of looking great, but here she merely looks slutty and tired. I'm sure I wasn't the only woman in the theatre thinking, "Hell, if the gorgeous Cate Blanchett can't hold onto her guy when he's presented with a rack like this, what does that say for us merely mortal women?" And indeed, when Blanchett asks him to look her in the eye and tell her he's never cheated on her, and he can't, it's heartbreaking -- for both of them.