Space Cowboys
**1/2
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Warner Village (Birkenhead Conway Park)
Released in the UK by Warner Bros. on September 22, 2000; certificate PG;
130 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 2.35:1
Directed by Clint Eastwood; produced by
Clint Eastwood, Andrew Lazar.
Written by Ken Kaufman, Howard Klausner.
Photographed by Jack N. Green; edited by Joel
Cox.
CAST.....
Clint Eastwood..... Frank D. Corvin
Tommy Lee Jones..... Hank Hawkins
Donald Sutherland..... Jerry O'Neill
James Garner..... Tank Sullivan
James Cromwell..... Bob Berson
Marcia Gay Harden..... Sara Holland
William Devane..... Eugene Davis
Old people, it seems, are groovy. Hollywood loves
putting out movies like "Grumpy Old Men", "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway", "Cocoon"
and "Tough Guys", which show them making smart-ass wisecracks, acting horny
and getting in adventures. I think I get the message. Clint Eastwood's
"Space Cowboys", well-made as it is, just goes through the same motions;
it's two hours and ten minutes of geriatric heroics in opposition to cocky
youngsters and slimy bureaucrats. One of them even manages to whup ass form
the grave -- more about that later.
The story: A vital Russian satellite has broken
down in outer space, and threatens to crash back into the Earth's atmosphere
in approximately five weeks. Its guidance system is too out of date for current
NASA personnel to work out, so the original designer, Frank D. Corvin (Eastwood)
is called in to help. Men are needed to go up to space to fix the troubled
machine, and the ageing Frank insists that he must be one of
them.
He also declares that he will only perform the
mission if his own team come along. They were the original Air Force pilots
scheduled to go into space in the 1950s, before they were replaced by a chimp.
Here's their chance to realise unforgotten ambitions.
The guys are of course a broadly idiosyncratic
lot: Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones spar off each other and bicker like boys;
James Garner has become a hyperactive Baptist minister; Donald Sutherland
is an incorrigible playboy. They engage in banter, outsmart everyone, and,
darn it, cut right through silly newfangled crap, because they come from
the days when men were men. After they get off to an embarrassing start at
training camp, younger astronauts send them over nutrient drinks as a dinnertime
prank. The next day, they perform brilliantly, and respond by sending the
young team baby food. Hoho... didn't see that one coming.
Eastwood, Jones, Garner and Sutherland are good
actors, NASA headquarters make for cool sets, and the screenplay's masses
of one-liners often hit the mark, as when a woman asks Sutherland his name,
and he responds "Call me... Anytime." "Space Cowboys" isn't boring, it just
feels too by-the-numbers in its plot and sense of humour. There are obvious
'surprises', like when the Russian satellite turns out to be related to a
nuclear arsenal. Jokes get repetitive, like the way our boys keep asking
about old colleagues and finding out they're dead. There's even a cliché
that became obsolete five years ago -- the heroes become big news, and give
a witty interview on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show".
The trailer for this movie made it look like a
typical lively-old-men flick. I hoped it would defy those expectations, because
Eastwood is a great director who likes to take chances. It doesn't. Most
unforgivable is the final shot, which is so implausible it borders on
self-parody. Without giving it away, I'll just say that it requires a dead
man to luck into an impossibility of physics that happens to fulfil his lifelong
dream. What are they putting in nutrient drinks these days?
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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