Retro Film Review: Ground Control (1998)

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(source:tmdb.org)

One of the hardest and the least appreciated jobs in the world is air traffic control. Controllers spend their days making decisions that could mean life or death for hundreds, or even thousands, of people. On the other hand, the job is far from glamorous since it is reduced to people sitting, following little blips on the screen and occasionally barking incomprehensible orders. Needless to say, media pay attention to air traffic controllers only when things go wrong. Hollywood fits into this pattern, which could be seen in Ground Control, 1998 drama directed by Richard Howard.

Protagonist of the film is Jack Harris (played by Kiefer Sutherland), former air traffic controller. Five and half years ago he worked in Chicago and saw one little blip on the screen coming down. That blip on the screen was a jetliner with hundreds of passengers and Harris, unable to deal with his guilt, had to resign. Cruise (played by Robert Sean Leonard), his former boss, now in charge of Phoenix air traffic control, brings him back from the retirement because he needs help. Increased holiday traffic has coincided with nasty cold front in the western part of USA and most of the planes were redirected towards Phoenix and Cruise's understaffed and under-equipped facility. The night is going to be long and eventful - Cruise's team must deal with faulty equipment, some of its members on the verge of nervous breakdown and, finally, a jetliner which had major malfunction.

Ground Control is shot for very small amount of money and it looks very much like routine television production. The look isn't very different from the way script treated its title subject. What was supposed to be interesting and insightful drama is reduced to typical disaster film with all cliches of the genre. Plot twists are utterly predictable and the directing also leaves much to be desired. Ground Control seems to be much longer than hour and half of its running time. Thankfully, the acting rescues this film from becoming complete waste of time. Sutherland handles his thankless role very well and the rest of the cast, made of experienced and dependable character actors, is also up to the task. Unfortunately, Ground Control, although watchable, is far from quality standards worthy of such interesting and serious subject.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on June 28th 2004)

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