Ground Control (1998)

Purely Joyful Movie!

How sad is this?

Good movie but grossly overrated

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An airline pilot who has lost everything electrical, hydraulic, wind and steam-powered on his plane makes contact with PHX center via cell phone and says "Roger Phoenix, we are not going anywhere." If you don't understand the problem with that, you will probably think this is a good movie. The dialogue comes fast and furious and is full of in-crowd jargon, but also full of ATC non-sequiturs. I got the impression a copy of the script was cut up into strips that contained one line of dialogue AND one line of action on each strip, then each strip pasted on a 3 x 5 card; then the cards were shuffled very thoroughly and the movie shot in order from the resulting stack of cards. A REAL air traffic controller would find hundreds of lines with technical errors; you would think that control towers and centers (ARTCC) were interchangeable. In a scene near the end, when all the airplanes PHX ARTCC was controlling have all gotten on the ground, the controllers all close up shop and go home, leaving the ARTCC unmanned, except for the hero and a few other important characters. Then when they assume that the last airplane has crashed, they all climb up the stairs to the tower, which is apparently conveniently on top of the ARTCC (which is never the case), and the hero ARTCC controller guides the plane in from the catwalk outside the control tower cab. A complete list of the technical improbabilities, inconsistencies in dialogue and unexplained scene shifts would fill a 500 page book. I say all this having been an air traffic controller and ATP rated pilot. Again, any pilot or controller who thinks this is a good movie was not paying attention.

This movie has glaring continuity errors. Like Sutherland tapping on a laptop which vacillates between being on and off.And its clichés - the ex-air traffic controller involved in a previous disaster who's brought back to save the day. Groan. It really didn't need worn out clichés which only made me think "Airplane!". A regular guy in the job would have sufficed. And moments like the instant brewing romance lacked subtlety too.Set those flaws aside though and this is a good movie. Most of the acting is convincing. And even though the plot is simple it kept my interest and had me rooting for them till the end.Despite its flaws it drew me in. A simple story and for the most part, well told. Well worth watching.

Question. How do you make a film when you have no money? Answer. Well whatyou do is, hire a studio, get some old computers, a couple of maps of America and you get the Sutherland in and plaster his name and picture all over the front cover. What else you do is record some footage of aeroplanes off the TV and use this as if it was your own.This pretty much sums up this film.And yes it is true - the Sutherland is living on his reputation. His performance here isn't even worth commenting on, its that bad. His performance here actually reminded me of Dean Stockwell in The Langoliers, thats how bad his acting is. Rather than being a film about the pressures of air traffic controllers, it is more of a story of the Sutherland's triumphant return to the air traffic control desk.Excited? Well wait to you see Fonsy ex happy days in this one. This is worth watching - not because its good but because it is hilarious how bad his acting is. Its hilarious.Watch it just for this.

I wish just once film makers would stay consistent with their aircraft (it's not that hard, and very noticeable) a 747 was crashing at the beginning, but with L1011 wreckage. Then the 747 "Transgolf" turns into a 737 on the outside and a 727 on the inside, lovely. Plus, everything just goes wrong doesn't it. The "Transgolf" plane incident seems remarkably familiar to the United plane that crash-landed in Cedar Rapids, IA a few years back too.All in all it's somewhat fun to watch but you have to realize that it's so obviously stupid and these seemingly minor inconsistencies bring down the quality of the film so much.