By Richard Winters
My Rating: 6 out of 10
4-Word Review: Deaths at mining outpost.
William (Sean Connery) is a federal marshal assigned to an isolated mining outpost on one of Jupiter’s moons. The outpost, known as Con-Am 27, is supervised by Mark Sheppard (Peter Boyle), who boasts a high productivity from his miners, but this comes at a cost as they seem to be steadily dying-off after suffering from bizarre psychotic episodes. William brings a blood sample of one of the latest victims to Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen), a nurse stationed at the outpost, who runs it through some tests and learns that he had been taking a powerful drug that can allow the men to work long hours at a high rate, but they will eventually burn-out and be driven crazy after about 10-months of use. William learns that Sheppard is fully aware of the drug use and allows it since it helps his workers achieve high results while also paying-off the police authorities to keep quiet. William refuses to go along with this and openly challenges the status quo of the space station causing Sheppard to call-in two assassins who’ll arrive on the latest shuttle and dispose of William unless he’s able to kill them first.
The film was inspired by writer/director Peter Hyams’ desire to make a western, but was advised by studio execs that westerns were no longer profitable, but sci-fi movies dealing with outer space were, so he decided to switch the setting of High Noon, a famous western starring Gary Cooper, to that of a space station, but otherwise kept many of the story elements from that one intact. The response by critics at the time was mixed with some labeling the effort as ‘trite’ while others, like critic Desmond Ryan of the Philadelphia Inquirer calling it ‘scarier than Alien, which I found funny since that one has gone on to be a timeless classic while this is largely forgotten.
The film does score when it approaches the human factor like greed and the way management can and will exploit the workforce if it’s able and the resentment and apathy workers can have towards their jobs, which even if it’s in some distant future could still most likely be reoccurring elements that will go on no matter what the time period. The look of the space station, particularly from the outside, is cool and I enjoyed the way the film replicates the ominous silence of space especially at the beginning.
Some other futuristic effects don’t work as well like the way the computers feel the need to make little beepy noises every time it prints out a word, or message, which may have seemed high tech at the time, but is now antiquated. The television screens display the old tube models while today we have the flat HD variety making this ‘future’ seen here seem more like the past. There’s also plentiful shots of people openly smoking in meeting rooms, but since second-hand smoke was proven to cause lung cancer and outlawed now, more people vape anyways, then why would it have been brought back in the future?
Connery shouldn’t have to explain why he’s going up against this evil conglomerate when no one else will help him, as the viewer should be able to surmise this on their own, which shows how poorly fleshed-out his character is. Having him rebuff his son’s and wife’s request to come back to earth with them because he has something to ‘prove’ unintentionally works against his likability as it makes him seem selfish versus noble. Would’ve been better had his wife left him on bad terms, maybe because for example he was an alcoholic, or too focused on his job, and thus with nothing else to lose he decides to prove to himself he can do at least something right by taking down the bad guys since he’s essentially failed at everything else. The audience would’ve been more emotionally invested in his quandary if he had nowhere else to turn, instead of here where he technically does have an option.
Sternhagen is an interesting choice for the female lead in that she’s not the proverbial young and attractive heroine like viewers have come to expect in Hollywood action flicks. Had she been more romantically enticing that might’ve made the viewer dislike William, particularly if he acted upon his emotions, since he was already married, so to avoid any possible conflict they made the lady character older and sarcastic and thus not somebody to typically fall in love with. While I appreciated the concept of having two people work together without it leading into a sexual escapade, which becomes a cliche in itself, I still felt it was hard to fathom that she’d be the only one at this outpost that would offer him assistance. The work crew wasn’t real happy with management especially finding out that they were fed a drug meant to ultimately kill them, so I’d think there would be some of them who would want to help William take down their oppressive employer, which would’ve also helped it add a wrinkle to the High Noon formula, which it otherwise follows too closely to the point that it becomes predictable and redundant.
While I did like the shoot-out that happens in the giant greenhouse, which visually is impressive due to its vast largeness, I did feel overall the assassins weren’t interesting. We barely see their faces and they come-off as being no different than the other workers already at the station and this lack of distinction makes them forgettable. Initially I thought William wouldn’t be able to know which ones coming off the shuttle, as there are quite a few people who disembark it, were the killers, so there would be added suspense of him being unclear of who exactly was after him, but this quickly gets answered when William can see via circuit cameras the two men taking out their weapons, which ruins what could’ve been an added mystery. Ultimately, I felt the assassins shouldn’t have been human, but instead an indestructible killer robot, which would’ve kept it more in the space age realm and given it added excitement and special effects.
My Rating: 6 out of 10
Released: May 22, 1981
Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes
Rated R
Director: Peter Hyams
Studio: Warner Brothers
Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube
Scopophilia 