‘The first one to pass out buys the beers tonight…’
Legendary actor/director Clint Eastwood was in need of a hit when Space Cowboys came along. He was coming off the back of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and True Crime, both of which had flopped, so a crowd-pleasing, space comedy seemed just the ticket. While Space Cowboys was both a mild critical and commercial success, it also ushered in a series of much better films (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers etc) that have overshadowed this effort somewhat…
The plot is basically Armageddon but with old guys. When a Russian satellite malfunctions, former rogue pilot Frank Corvin (Eastwood) is tasked with getting the band back together for one last mission. Enter Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner. Elsewhere, James Cromwell is suitably severe as Flight Director Bob Gerson and Marcia Gay Harden provides a little feminine flair.
The first part of this movie which involves Eastwood travelling across America to recruit his former colleagues to the mission is excellent. Unfortunately, the film that is promised in the first act never really comes to fruition. We simply don’t have enough of the four main players interacting to really sell us on their supposed relationship. Indeed, Sutherland and Garner are pretty much sidelined completely in the film’s unsuccessful third act (possibly because both of them sustained nasty injuries during filming). As soon as we leave Earth’s atmosphere, the film grinds to an unsatisfying halt and the tonal imbalance of the conclusion is impossible to ignore. There are some bad needle drops here also. I won’t spoil what they are here but you’ll know them when you hear them.
Space Cowboys aims to be a heady mix of Armageddon, The Right Stuff and Apollo 13. In the end, it’s a disappointing mishmash of other more exciting movies. Sure, it’s visually stunning and there are some great moments involving Eastwood and Jones, but in the end, this is a movie that is lesser than the sum of its parts.
