SPACE COWBOYS (2000, USA, 130m, PG) ***½
Action, Adventure, Thriller
dist. Warner Bros.; pr co. Clipsal Films / Mad Chance / Malpaso Productions / Village Roadshow Pictures / Warner Bros.; d. Clint Eastwood; w. Ken Kaufman, Howard Klausner; pr. Clint Eastwood, Andrew Lazar; ph. Jack N. Green (Technicolor | 2.35:1); m. Lennie Niehaus; ed. Joel Cox; pd. Henry Bumstead; ad. Jack G. Taylor Jr..
cast: 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), William Devane (Eugene Davis), Loren Dean (Ethan Glance), Courtney B. Vance (Roger Hines), Barbara Babcock (Barbara Corvin), Rade Serbedzija (General Vostov), Blair Brown (Dr. Anne Caruthers), Jay Leno (Jay Leno), Nils Allen Stewart (Tiny), Deborah Jolly (Cocktail Waitress), Toby Stephens (Young Frank), Eli Craig (Young Hawk), John Asher (Young Jerry), Matt McColm (Young Tank), Billie Worley (Young Gerson).
Eastwood, Jones, Sutherland and Garner star as a group of pilots whose time has come to serve their country and fulfil their dream of going to space. In 1958, the members of Team Daedalus, a group of top Air Force test pilots, were ready to serve their country as the first Americans in space. When NASA replaced the Air Force for outer atmospheric testing, they were pushed aside for a chimpanzee. The team retired, but the dream of going into space never died. Highly entertaining, if wildly implausible, it coasts on the charisma of its four veteran leads and generates agreeable humour from their character interactions. Also impressive are the in-space special and visual effects. Eastwood directs confidently and generates much tension in the movie’s final act. If you can accept the premise you’ll find much to enjoy, just don’t scrutinise the plot too closely.
