Space Cowboys

8/20/00

Clint Eastwood is an American Institution by now, and although he has continually proven that his movies are indeed not only works of art, but excellent treatises on the human condition, his last couple of films haven’t done too well at the box office. Although this shouldn’t be a litmus test for a great director (like Scorscese, for example) in these days of “instant” numbers, it always bothers me when a good movie by a great director is overlooked by the masses who would rather go see a indifferent film which is badly directed.

That said, Space Cowboys, Clint’s latest feature, is not only a good film, but did very well at the box office, and I really like to see that this film actually did better numbers than any other Eastwood directed film has ever done. (Albeit ticket prices are a lot higher than they ever have been, as well.) The movie is a slam-bang action thriller, set in space, and as such must be the first time Clint has ever worked in front of a bluescreen. The visuals in this movie not only thrill and inspire, but are a lot better than the visuals supplied for Brian De Palma’s space opera, Mission to Mars, which left a lot to be desired anyway.

Throughout the last decade, beginning with Pale Rider, and intensified with Unforgiven, which won the Best Picture oscar, Eastwood films in which he also stars are basically about the condition of aging. As the protagonist enters his golden years, no matter what the plot or genre of the particular picture, the basic theme has been how man ages with dignity, and what his perceptions of his life choices have been. Unforgiven was rightly canonized for these themes, but they have certainly been in evidence since then, even in the director’s “forgotten” films, like his last, True Crime, where the aging newspaperman gets a good hard look at his choices and his life.

In Space Cowboys, Frank Corvin, Eastwood’s character, is a larger-than-life test pilot, who with his “crew”, Team Daedalus, were in 1958 among the first men to break the sound barrier. The beginning of the movie plays like The Right Stuff, as younger actors dubbed with the cast’s voices are shown testing the X-1 in a black and white prologue. After crashing the X-1, Frank and his crew find out, in another scene right out of the Right Stuff, that they will not be considered as astronauts in the new space program, because that job of course goes to a monkey. Flash forward to “the present”, where, now in his retirement , although still as feisty as ever, Frank is called upon to use his engineering skills to figure out how to “fix” a faulty guidance system on a satellite which is in trouble.

His old nemesis, Bob Gerson (James Cromwell, whom moviegoers are forever fated to thinking is the bad guy since L.A. Confidential) is still one of the bosses at NASA, and is forced to right the wrongs he made years ago, when Frank convinces him the only way to “fix” the problem is to send him and his aging “Space Cowboys” up to the satellite to do the work.

We are treated to scenes straight out of The Magnificent Seven (or more succinctly, Kelly’s Heroes) as Frank rounds up his old crew, including his engineer, Donald Sutherland, as a dirty old man, James Garner, the navigator, who is now a Baptist preacher, and Hawk, the fellow pilot who lost the X-1 in the prologue, who is played by the “youngest” member of the cast at 53, Tommy Lee Jones. The “boys” have to go through training with younger astronauts, and prove their mettle in a series of vignettes which are sure to have any audience member over the age of 40 in stitches. This is a rip-roaring adventure film, which just happens to star “geriatric” action adventure personalities who, since this is an Eastwood flick, are not afraid of showing their age. Even though there are a few plot twists which I don’t want to give away, this is a comedy, and the scenes are all played very well. The audience identifies with these veterans, and the “casting device” of using them works very well indeed.

After the rather lighthearted scenes of their training, there is an extended period of time spent in space to “repair the satellite” and as I mentioned earlier, this part of the film plays infinitely better than De Palma’s Mission to Mars. The weightless crew in the cabin, and the EVA snippets look very real, and I was enthused rather than unimpressed with the special effects. There is plenty of action in this sequence, and at no time is the audience unsure of what is happening.

I hesitate, as usual, to point out too much of the plot, but suffice it to say that all is not what it seems on the mission. Clint, at 70, is as Ken Turan pointed out in the L.A. Times review, one of our actors who has aged beautifully. Add this fact to his proclivity for featuring the process of aging in his films, and heis all the more a genius. I still can’t get over the fact that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which is one of my favorite Eastwood films, didn’t get the recognition it deserved.

Space Cowboys plays to all our fantasies about wishing we had been given the chances to complete the destinies we dreamed of in our youth. It is one of those movies where, if I had seen it in my youth, would have gunned the accelerator on the car as I screeched out of the parking lot. Not a bad feeling to have in these days of predigested films. I rate this film an 8 of 10 on the Mikometer. It isn’t a work of art, but it is a thinking man’s action adventure. And I thought it was damn fine.

MIKOMETER RATING: 8 of 10

Clint Eastwood: Frank Corvin
Tommy Lee Jones: Hawk Hawkins
Donald Sutherland: Jerry O’Neill
James Garner: Tank Sullivan
James Cromwell: Bob Gerson
Marcia Gay Harden: Sara Holland

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures/Clipsal Films, a Malpaso Production and Mad Chance Production, released by Warner Bros. Director Clint Eastwood. Producers Clint Eastwood, Andrew Lazar. Executive producer Tom Rooker. Screenplay Ken Kaufman & Howard Klausner. Cinematographer Jack N. Green. Editor Joel Cox. Costumes Deborah Hopper. Music Lennie Niehaus. Production design Henry Bumstead. Art director Jack G. Taylor Jr. Set decorator Richard Goddard. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.