Reaction: FOUR STARS- I had an absolute blast watching this film! It was unexpectedly serious and exciting. With new eyes and suspicions, the loose ends for Kelloway grow as crunch time for completing this hoax mission gets more and more complicated. When an astute Mission Control technician (Robert Walden) starts to see readings that suggest the crew are closer than they are supposed to, he asks questions and confides his concerns to a local reporter friend, Robert Caufield (Elliot Gould). In order for the mission timeline to appear intact, for the next several months, the three are held in isolation from the outside world and occasionally broadcast staged transmissions to Houston, including a fake video greeting to their wives. With their families held at ransom by bigger federal enemies, the crew are blackmailed to comply with Kelloway's plan. His goal is to protect the integrity of the program at the cost of public truth.
His plan is to manufacture the lie and hoax that Brubaker, Willis, and Walker will indeed land on Mars and return home. He escorts the crew to warehouse on the base that has been retrofitted as a film studio with a mock Martian landscape and trainer spacecraft modules. With that motive, Kelloway's plan for ensuring success involves a massive cover-up. This mission had to, and still has to, appear to be a success. With NASA already facing declining funding and support, Kelloway implores that a scratched mission would ruin the administration's already weakened reputation. However, the big question looming is why continue the launch. Kelloway brings them up to speed that a cheaply made life-support system manufacturing error was discovered a few hours before the launch and their evacuation will end up saving their lives. James Kelloway (Hal Halbrook), a man they all know and trust.
During their removal, the unmanned rocket launch still takes place in front of the watchful public and press as if everything is normal.ĭemanding an explanation, the crew are met by Houston Mission Control supervisor Dr. Simpson) are ordered to evacuate the rocket and are whisked away to an abandoned military base in the desert. Strapped in and ready to go on the launchpad, the three-man astronaut team of Capricorn One of Colonel Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Lieutenant Colonel Peter Willis (Sam Waterston), and Commander John Walker (O.J. Set in the 1970's after the decline of the Apollo program, NASA is about to embark on the first manned mission to Mars, an eight-month journey, with a weak ballyhoo when a swerve occurs. The wild plot that I alluded to earlier is the massive fictional hoax at the center of Capricorn One. Simpson and a fun reference for a famous Telly Savalas extended cameo. Despite a big name ensemble cast for back then, filled with screen favorites that have faded away now, Capricorn One most likely ends up as a footnote on the film resume of the notorious O.J. If anything, have a little guilty pleasure fun by using Capricorn One as a time capsule pre-game snack for the heavily-hyped Gravity coming this October.īackground: This British-financed independent film with a small budget put writer-director Peter Hyams ( 2010, Outland, The Presidio, Timecop, End of Days) back on the map after early feature film failure and was the most successful independent film of that year. In a way, the NASA of then, dealing declining public interest and congressional support after the peak of the Apollo program, was not all that different to the state of NASA today after the recent retirement of the Space Shuttle missions and an uncertain future in tough economic times. Why should it be seen? Capricorn One, with its wild plot, deserves to be slotted as a science fiction entry with its conspiracy thriller peers of the same 1970's era, which makes up a fascinating time period and subgenre of cinematic history. I've kept it on my radar and had a hard a tough time finding a copy to see. I learned about more after watching The Final Countdown, another little buried treasure piece of entertainment along the same vein, about a year or two ago. It was first suggested to me by a friend-of-a-friend, Dave Berg, a country radio DJ on 102.5 "The Fox" in Rochester, Minnesota in a Facebook thread about science fiction and genre films.
CAPRICORN ONE COMMON SENSE MEDIA SERIES
How did it get to my "blind spot?" Like so many movies that will make this series of vintage reviews, Capricorn One was simply before my time, released in 1978.
0 kommentar(er)
