Space Cowboys

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I am not entirely sure why Warner Bros. chose this 2000 movie release for a high-definition transfer, but I can guess. Although Clint Eastwood produced it, directed it, and stars in it, it is hardly one of his best films. Nevertheless, it is Eastwood, and the film is not without its charms. Besides that, it's a modern motion picture filmed and recorded to today's highest technical standards, so the video quality is pretty decent and the sound is even better, making it a prime candidate for HD-DVD reproduction.

Inspired no doubt by the sojourn in space by former astronaut and senator John Glenn, as well as by the mission to correct the Hubble Space Telescope a few years before, "Space Cowboys" puts four aging pilots into the cockpit of a spaceship and rockets them into adventure. It's pleasant stuff, mostly lighthearted and amusing, with a fairly exciting conclusion. Starring charismatic pros Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner, the film could hardly fail.

Part of the fun is watching the stars having a good time reveling in their old age as geriatric space jockeys. The movie begins in the late fifties with the four of them brash young pilots testing supersonic aircraft. An impressive opening shot cuts from a laid-back country tune to the sight and sound of a jet plane breaking a high-altitude speed record. Then the United States embarks on its space program, and all four young men are inexplicably left out of it, replaced by a chimp, them looking like chumps.

Fast forward some forty years, and they're all retired geezers. But they're called out from their lands of leisure by NASA because of a distressed Russian communications satellite that only they can fix. Seems the guidance system aboard was designed by Eastwood's character, Dr. Frank Corvin, it's been in orbit for thirty years, and it's so old no one but Corvin knows how to work on it. If it isn't fixed, it's going to crash-land on Earth, possibly killing a lot of innocent people. Of course, NASA doesn't actually want Corvin to go into space; they just want him to tell them how to repair the thing. But Corvin sees this as an opportunity for the government to make up for not letting him into space forty years before. He demands he be let go up in a space shuttle, and he insists his old team come with him.

The first third of the film recounts Corvin's attempts to round up his old buddies and persuade them to come along. Tank Sullivan (Garner) has become a minister, albeit not a very good one, and is more than willing to give it up for a while and go cavorting in space. Jerry O'Neill (Sutherland) is now designing roller-coasters, but he's delighted at the prospect of heroics, all the more to stimulate his overactive libido. Which leaves William "Hawk" Hawkins (Jones), who hasn't spoken to Corvin in years and is now a part-time daredevil stunt pilot and crop duster. He takes a bit more persuading, but he finally signs aboard.

The second third of the film describes the team's physical training. They have only five weeks to get in shape and take off, and the mission administrator, Bob Gibson (James Cromwell), is the same guy who gave these fellows the brush-off back in '58. Gibson wants to see them fail their physicals so that he can send up a team of his own younger men. The final part of the film involves the old-timers' outer-space escapade, a far more dangerous and exciting assignment than they thought when they find out why the Russians really want their satellite fixed.

The press, naturally, have a field day when they find out four old guys are going into space. The newspapers dub them the "Ripe Stuff," and the team even get a stint on Leno, who asks them if they ever fought in the War...between the North and South!

Eastwood and Garner appear the most appropriate for their roles, both of them old Hollywood cowhands and both of them in their late sixties and early seventies respectively at the time of filming. It's Sutherland and Jones who are the odd men out. Sutherland, about sixty-five at the time, looks the part but has never been seen as much of an action hero in his career. Nonetheless, he gets the bulk of the film's funniest lines. Jones, on the other hand, is a good ten to fifteen years younger than his teammates. In 1958 he would have been about twelve years old. But he, too, copes well, especially since his face is lined and craggy enough to pass for somebody older.

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