Space Cowboys
During the early '90s, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in a stretch of films to rival anyone during the last 20 years: White Hunter, Black Heart; In The Line Of Fire; A Perfect World; The Bridges Of Madison County; and the modern classic Unforgiven. But in the last five years, his output has grown more erratic. Absolute Power, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil and True Crime all had their moments, but achieved only varying degrees of success. In particular, True Crime was a letdown, with its clichéd climax and lame denouement.
The odds of Space Cowboys reversing this trend didn't seem high. It's the story of four retired NASA pilots who are forced back into action when a Russian satellite starts plummeting toward earth. It turns out that Frank Corvin (Clint Eastwood) is the only one familiar with the technology on this satellite, and he insists that his three NASA buddies from back in the day - Hawk (Tommy Lee Jones), Jerry (Donald Sutherland) and Tank (James Garner) - accompany him on the mission to outer space.
The early half of the film is essentially a geezer comedy highlighting the training regiment of this "Ripe Stuff"-crew as they get back into flying shape. It's peppered with bits of drama, including infighting between Frank and Hawk, tension between Frank and his supervisor Bob Gerson (played by another top-notch veteran, James Cromwell), and a romance between Hawk and NASA worker Sara (Marcia Gay Harden, a recent Oscar winner for Pollock).
In the film's second half, the action takes on a more dramatic feel as the veteran crew meets up with some unexpected surprises in space. Can they stop the Russian satellite and save the day?
Make no mistake, the script by Ken Kaufman (Encino Man) and Howard Klausner is hardly exceptional. There are scenes that border on the stupid: a fistfight between Hawk and Tank that seems ridiculous for men this age, and Hawk's somehow being "attached" to a large apparatus in outer space seems wholly unreal. And let's face it, having characters with names like Hawk and Tank is just downright lame.
Fortunately, the all-star cast is a mighty compensation for the script's shortcomings. Garner doesn't have a big part, but this guy is a pro. Sutherland hams it up amusingly as an oversexed, dirty old man. And Tommy Lee Jones has his best role in the last five years, including a hilarious scene in which he gives a flying "lesson" to a punk-ass youth.
In Space Cowboys, Eastwood is back in top form as both actor and director. Few actors get to the core of a character like Eastwood, and his work as Frank Corvin is no exception. As a director, Eastwood seems more focused here than in recent films, effortlessly segueing between the broad comedy of the training sequences and the harrowing drama of the space scenes.
Space Cowboys isn't in the class of Eastwood's best work (see this week's Top 10 Eastwood films list), but at age 70 Eastwood still does it better than most of Hollywood. If you've got any doubts, pay attention to the film's final shot, described by Time magazine as "the most impressive, haunting final shot of the movie year." Here's hoping Eastwood keeps making films well into the 21st century.
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If any 70-year-old could inspire carousing, it's Eastwood, but he's not the hard-drinker in Space Cowboys as in some of his other films.
The shot of the lead actors' four bare asses is, alas, hardly an aphrodisiac.
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