Capricorn One
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Movie Reviews of Capricorn One
Movie Review: Houston, we have a problem!
Summary: 4 Stars
The 1970s were a time rife with left-wing conspiracy theories. Why not? The New Left hippie counterculture of the 1960s was just starting to settle down into "real" life, that dull drudgery of working every day for the man and paying bills so you can squirt out a couple of kids who'll soak up every spare dime you've got yet still hate you when they reach adolescence. Yay! To keep the experience real, the ex-hippies made sure to believe in every half-baked kook conspiracy that came down the pike. The conspiracy to kill JFK. The conspiracy to kill RFK. The conspiracy to kill MLK, Jr. Alien invaders. The evil goings on over at the CIA. J. Edgar Hoover in a dress. Anything was fair game for the acidheads. Heck, they're still up to their old tricks today with the hoodoo about global warming (Yeah, right. They said it'd ice over in the 1970s--if overpopulation didn't kill us off first) and the whole Election 2000 imbroglio. The election of George W. Bush and the concomitant misadventures in Iraq will provide conspiracy scenarios well into the middle of the century--or until the last Baby Boomer in the last pair of Depends coughs out their last breath.
All of this nonsense brings us to Peter Hyams's 1978 conspiracy thriller "Capricorn One," a lesser entry in the 1970s "paranoia will destroy ya" subgenre. It's notable today for the presence of one O.J. Simpson, sans bloody glove and any knowledge that in roughly fifteen years he'll kill his ex-wife and her male companion. There might've been a white Bronco somewhere in the movie--I don't remember. What I do know is this: "Capricorn One" is an entertaining, if somewhat laughable jaunt, through the recesses of Hollywood paranoia, New Left fantasy, and Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain haircut. The plot, if you choose to accept it, deals with three astronauts--Colonel Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Commander John Walker (Simpson), and Lt. Colonel Peter Willis (Sam Waterston)--and their sudden realization that the much anticipated trip to Mars ain't going to happen. Instead of disappointing the public, however, the government goes through the motions of a launch but stashes the astronauts away in an airplane hanger out in the desert. They plan on faking the Mars landing. The hanger has television cameras, a fake lander, a bogus landscape, and enough government secrecy to keep everything under wraps for years. Or maybe not.
Of course, some young shooter at mission control notices some glitch in the computer system that doesn't seem right. He properly notifies his superiors of the problem but is troubled when they don't seem that concerned. He mentions it in passing to his reporter friend Robert Caulfield (Elliot Gould). Caulfield doesn't think it's anything to get excited about until his buddy suddenly disappears without a trace, and bad things start happening to him. Like cops showing up at your apartment and finding drugs you didn't know you had in the bathroom, or driving your car down the road only to discover the brakes are suddenly nonexistent. These are the seminal markers of government conspiracy, and Caulfield (a true journalist/leftist/hero/ in the vein of Woodward and Bernstein) knows this. The rest of "Capricorn One" turns into a race between Caulfield on the one hand, doggedly trying to uncover the evil government conspiracy, and on the other hand the three astronauts trying to save their lives because certain developments suddenly make them think that the government might not want any witnesses around. Come to think of it, does the government ever want anyone around to witness its nefarious schemes and manipulations? Nah.
I noted that "Capricorn One" is a laughable jaunt, and it is. Elliot Gould is a hoot as the over the top reporter Caulfield. A throbbing forehead vein in human form, Gould's character chomps at the bit to prove the big bad government is pulling yet another sleazy scam. He screams at his boss, the man, and anyone that stands in his way. Only by posing heroically and running a lot can Caulfield get to the bottom of the faked Capricorn mission. It's unintentionally hilarious. I mean, the speeded up reels of his car careening through town without brakes evokes memories of the Keystone Kops, and the slow motion run with him and Brubaker at the end has to be one of the most feminine conclusions I've ever seen in a film. No wonder both of these chaps ended up married to Barbra Streisand. Yet the film does offer a few thrills (including a plane chase with Telly Savalas) and some good acting from Hal Holbrook as Dr. James Kelloway, a NASA scientist torn between his loyalties to the astronauts and his attachments to the space program. The movie has some good dialogue too, mostly seen in a monologue delivered by Holbrook at the beginning of the film.
The disc I watched "Capricorn One" on had zero in the way of supplements. No trailers, no commentary tracks, no behind the scenes footage, no deleted/extended scenes. No confession from O.J. Simpson, either. It's an all right film, worth a watch once maybe, but the whole idea is sort of outdated and laughable. How sinister is a conspiracy to hide the fact that we aren't landing on Mars? Not much today, but back during the Cold War the competition with the Soviet Union over who did what first in space had serious repercussions. If the Russians thought we put men on Mars, they'd also think our nuclear weapons technology was superior as well. So when viewed that way, "Capricorn One" has a certain cachet. It also holds some allure, I'd imagine, for the nuts who think NASA faked the moon landings. And the two or three Elliot Gould fans. Give it a shot if you fall into those categories.
Movie Review: Terrific conspiracy thriller
Summary: 4 Stars
"Capricorn One" (1978) is quite simply one of my all-time favorite movies: a fast-paced conspiracy thriller brimming with excellent performances and a script by writer/director Peter Hyams which is filled with witty dialog and believable situations. And the cast is terrific: Elliott Gould as an investigative reporter who has "cried wolf" one too many times, James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O.J. Simpson (Let's not go there.) as ill-fated astronauts, Hal Holbrook as a shady NASA chief, Brenda Vacarro as Brolin's dutiful wife, David ("Bosley") Doyle as Gould's harried editor and David Huddleston as a congressman and NASA booster. Add funny cameos by Karen Black as Gould's fellow reporter and Telly Savalas as a crop-duster pilot who comes in late and saves the day and you have a terrific cast that brings welcome professionalism to what could have been a silly affair.
The plot is typical '70's-era political paranoia in that it involves NASA faking a mission to Mars then having to terminate the "astronauts" when the plan goes awry and the public believes the astronauts have been lost. Enter third-rate reporter Robert Caulfield (Gould), who is tipped-off that something is wrong by a NASA engineer (Robert Walden) who promptly disappears. It's up to Caulfield to figure out what's going on (much to the chagrin of his skeptical editor Doyle) while the astronauts plot an escape into the West Texas desert.
Everything is preposterous, yes, but Hyams directs with such slam-bang pacing and such an obvious sense of humor it's hard not to get involved in the story. And there are two excellent action set-pieces: Gould piloting an out-of-control car through the streets of Houston and a thrilling last-minute cliffhanger involving two menacing helicopters and Savalas' crop duster.
Actually, I like everything about this film, from the performances, especially Doyle and Savalas, who are hysterical, to the fact that O.J. gets killed halfway through the film.(Okay, I couldn't resist.) Hyams' script, his direction, the production values are all top-notch and the musical score is memorable, especially over the fast-paced opening credits, which set the mood for everything that follows. And for once a film ends on just the right note.
In all, this one is a winner, and would rate ***** (out of *****) if it weren't for the disappointing DVD package, which contains production notes and a widescreen 2:35:1 print and nothing else. Since Hyams is still working today, a commentary track doesn't seem too much to ask, does it? Until then, even this treatment can't harm a terrific popcorn flick.
Movie Review: Successful thriller, yet technically amiss....
Summary: 4 Stars
Capitalizing on the conspiracy-ridden films that proliferated during the 1970's, like "All the President's Men," and "Three Days of the Condor," Peter Hyams "Capricorn One" is certainly an edge-of-your-seat thriller that is engaging from start to finish.
Hal Holbrook, who I have never seen miscast in any film, is well-suited to the role as the corrupt NASA administrator determined to carry on with the fradulant mission to Mars who will stop at nothing--even at the cost of the astronauts' lives and those of their families.
James Brolin and Sam Waterson are both capable and convincing in their roles as two of the three astronauts who must fight for their lives once they've been coerced into faking their mission. Before OJ Simpson would occupy the municipal golf courses of suburban LA searching for the "real killer" of his estranged ex-wife and Ronald Goldman, "The Juice" managed to find cameo roles in lesser motion pictures like this one in the 70's. As one of the doomed trio of astronauts, he brings little or nothing to the film.
The film's best scenes are dedicated to the chase sequences across the desert where the trio of astronauts must battle deadly government agents in black helicopters, poisonous snakes, and dehydration.
Elliot Gould is entertaining and capable as the reporter who risks his life breaking the story. Where the film fails is in a lack of technical and scientific accuracy--why would NASA use a typical lunar lander and Saturn V rocket for a mission to Mars circa 1979? What was Warner Brothers thinking? (Ironically, the space agency was a technical consultant to the film).
With that, and some other melodramatic moments provided by Brolin's long-suffering wife played by Brenda Vacarro, the movie resembles more of a made-for-television movie than a feature film. But despite these minor flaws, the film does work as a sort of political thriller afterall.
The soundtrack, courtesy of Jerry Goldsmith, is probably one of the best ever written for a 1970's film and well-worth purchasing. Like Hyams' "Outland" starring Sean Connery and Peter Boyle, "Capricorn One" follows a similar theme: one man fighting insurmountable odds and the corrupt elements of the organization in which he belongs, at the risk of his own life in his search for the truth.
Movie Review: Flawed But Still Well-Made Sci-Fi Conspiracy Opus
Summary: 4 Stars
Although it is flawed to a degree by somewhat incoherent plotting, and dialogue that doesn't always work, CAPRICORN ONE is nevertheless still a well-made post-Watergate conspiracy film with a space-age theme to it. In this film, three astronauts (Sam Waterston, James Brolin, O.J. Simpson) are about to blast off on a mission to Mars, when, for no explicable reason, they are yanked off the craft by the head of NASA (Hal Holbrook). They are merely told by Holbrook that there is a flaw with their craft, but that, in order to keep NASA's reputation afloat, they will be asked to fake the whole Mars mission on Capricorn One for the length of the predicted duration from a deserted base in the desert. They do this; but when the real spacecraft loses its heat shield upon re-entry to Earth, the world thinks that the men are dead.
Worst of all, of course, Holbrook wants to make sure that they stay that way--Dead. The end result is pandemonium, as Simpson, Waterston, and Brolin recognize the gravity of their situation and plot their escape.
Peter Hyams, who was to later helm the excellent "2010" and the underrated OUTLAND, wrote and directed CAPRICORN ONE; and while he doesn't have complete control on some of the supporting actors or their dialogue, when he keeps the focus on the astronauts and Holbrook's plans for eliminating them, the film moves along at a fairly steady pace. Simpson and Waterston are quite good in their roles, but it is Brolin that does some of the stand-out work; and Elliot Gould is the crusading journalist out to unravel the conspiracy and perhaps save a life or two, with the help of a crop-duster (Telly Savalas).
An interesting sidebar in CAPRICORN ONE is one where Brolin breaks into a deserted gas station and breaks open a Coke machine for change to make a potential life-saving phone call. Any sharp-minded film buff will notice this to be Hyams' witty homage to a similar scene in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 masterpiece DR. STRANGELOVE (and, of course, his later "2010" was the sequel to Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY).
Boosted by fairly good special effects and Jerry Goldsmith's music score, CAPRICORN ONE is sometimes forgotten because of its shortcomings, but it now seems to have developed a much-deserved cult following in its wake.
Movie Review: Good Drama And Real EMotions To See!
Summary: 4 Stars
CAPRICORN ONE is a film that when I saw it in the theatre in its original release - I was impressed. I walked out thinking that - wow, can this really happen?The film is written and directed Peter Hyams (2010: The Year We Make Contact, Stay Tuned) and has a realism about it that makes conspiracies seem real. The cast is quite good - with the exception of one person. Leading the pack is Elliot Gould as a reporter who stumbles on a story that involves astronauts James Brolin, Sam Waterson and O.J. Simpson (yuch!) in what ends up being a staged performance. There are some great performances by Brenda Vaccaro and Telly Sevalas (TV's Kojack). I don't want to give away the plot or story too much - but it has a great build up to a good strong ending.
One of the best aspects of the film I enjoy most is the score. Academy Award winning composer Jerry Goldsmith does some of his best work in this film. You know his musical schemes from films like Patton, Star Trek The Motion Picture, Legend (Original Version - see my review) and countless TV and Movie Productions.
Technically the film is an action and adventure. It has special effects and car chases and you must remember it is the product of the late 70's - so forgetting the period costumes of the time - the film is technically up to speed. I loved this movie and even when I watch this film now I can still feel the tension. A good action drama for everyone's collection. (8-27-02)