Pushing Tin
In this movie about air traffic controllers, Jake was supposed to play
best friend Barry Plotsky to John Cusack's Nick Falzone. It's difficult for
me to describe this character other then to say that I don't know that Jake
ever played a character such as Barry. His clothes - do New
Yorkers dress this way? He would wear loud printed short sleeve shirts,
the buttons were open about 3 down and he sported a medium weight gold
chain around his neck. He actually went through about 5 different clothes
changes and in one scene, wore a black leather jacket that looked mysteriously
like Dr. Matt's. He added a rosary on his head gear that dangled in back of his
ear and . . . a mustache! He looked pretty good with a mustache. His hair
was medium length and dark, brownish-blonde. The official site indicates
that the actors had to put in hours of air traffic control training. The training
was good as the actors did their "thing" as if they had routed airplanes
all their life. The director, Mike Newell, described the cast as a "very
talented, very odd, very ill-assorted bunch that works perfectly for the film.
There is no safe average in the cast and no safe average in the film."
{Jake, ill assorted? } He did say that they were so magnificenty inventive
that he just let them go. They, in turn, referred to him as "The Colonel".
The movie supposedly takes place in New York but was filmed in Toronto.
This was supposed to be a comedy. Maybe it was a mistake to make it
a comedy although there were some funny moments. Barry was described
in the script as "very New York, sarcastic and opinionated." Barry
was definitely a very different character for Jake but somewhere along
the line he lost the sarcastic part. Or, at least, I didn't think he was that
sarcastic. He would have moments where he would spout off observations
of their lives as controllers as if he were 'Zen air controller'. But, for the
most part, he was one of the guys - cocky, loose, fun-loving and intense.
(Definitely a departure from Dr. Kirk in Cherry, the movie he made right before this one.)