Movie Review by: Chin Kit Sen
Click here for pictures
In 1958 a group of four of the
greatest fighter pilots were recruited and trained to be the
first American team into space. This was team Daedalus, the
boldest, bravest and fastest test pilots in America.
But the government had other
plans and the mission halted in its footsteps. The Flight
Director, Eugene Davis (William Devane) took pleasure in
introducing the Chimpanzee which was to take the place of team
Daedalus, to drown all hopes and dreams they ever had of
walking amongst the stars.
Forty years have passed and
each of the members of the original Team Daedalus went their
separate ways, never having made it into space. But when the
Russian satellite 'Ikon' with a highly classified payload
starts falling to earth, it has the Russians and Americans
shivering where they stand. The apparently defunct satellite
uses technology so old, the original scientists who worked on
it were either dead or dying.
Fortunately, a joint operation
between the Russians and Americans find Frank Corvin (Clint
Eastwood), a retired seventy year old man who designed the
very system used on the Russian 'Ikon'. Frank also happens to
be one of the original four of Team Daedalus.
With the fate of the satellite
hanging by a thread, Frank wrestles his way into getting NASA
to allow HIS team, the original Team Daedalus, to be sent up
to repair the satellites guidance systems. He regroups his old
friends, Hawk Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones), Jerry O'Neil (Donald
Sutherland) and Tank Sullivan (James Garner) to train for the
mission all over again, just like they did forty years before.
But the hardest task of all was
not the physical. It wasn't the medical. Nor was it their age.
It was space itself and the secrets that are hidden in this
black, cold vastness. As team Daedalus find out first hand,
the Russian satellite is a little more than what they'd
bargained for.
There certainly is a sense of
comedy being witness to four old men going through rigorous
astronaut training all over again. The cheeky, defiant and
playful character which got them thrown off the project in the
first place was still evident in these budding sixty plus,
seventy year old men. Frank and Hawk, still flat-out in
competition. Jerry, still that lady charmer. Tank er, still
his same old self, except maybe a little closer to God.
The movie is not without its
sad moments, its moments of joy and victory and moments of a
sense of completion and a job well done. It is touching on
many levels, not just because they are old men, but because of
the sheer determination in spite of their age and their sense
of duty: to get the job done, no matter what.
The cast of veteran actors does
this movie the justice it deserves. Not only do these actors
have a long list of movies tagged to their careers, their
acting is of Award Winning calibre. Clint Eastwood, as he has
done many times before, does a superb job of Directing 'Space
Cowboys'.
|
A
60-year-old astronaut (Clint Eastwood) is sent on a mission to
repair a broken satellite that threatens to cause a disaster
on earth if it falls from outerspace. The only catch is that
he insists that three of his friends (Tommy Lee Jones, James
Garner, and Donald Sutherland) who were not originally
selected in the astronaut training program, accompany him as
his crew. This high-tech, high-action drama, directed by and
starring Eastwood, mimics classic space favorites, while
providing some of the chummy machismo of earlier Eastwood
movies.
