Ground Control (1998)

A former air traffic controller (Kiefer Sutherland) was one of the best in the business until one plane crash wipes out his professional and personal fortunes. Five years after the crash, a fierce storm cripples Phoenix and suddenly he's hurled back into the world he thought he'd left behind forever. Directed by Richard Howard, whose only film credit this is, possibly it's a pseudonym. As long as it keeps to the minutiae of the air traffic control room and the handling of planes, it's often intense and interesting. But as soon as it dwells on its characters, the dialogue is cliched which renders the controllers uninteresting as people. We also could do without the banality of the scenes with the anonymous passengers on the plane. Somehow, Sutherland manages to rise above the vapid screenplay and create a semblance of a human being. Some might call this a disaster film because of the planes in peril situation but I wouldn't since the emphasis is on the air traffic controllers and not the passengers on the plane. The score by Randy Miller is effective. With Henry Winkler, Kelly McGillis, Margaret Cho, Robert Sean Leonard, Bruce McGill, Kristy Swanson and Charles Fleischer.