Film 41/52: Outland (1981)


One of my favorite films of the late 70s is Peter Hyams' Mars mission conspiracy thriller, Capricorn One. I'm also a fan of his next film, the World War II romantic drama Hanover Street, starring a still-rising superstar Harrison Ford. So I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to revisit his next effort, frequently referred to as High Noon in outer space — Outland. I have a pretty clear sense of why it didn't resonate with me in the VHS home video era. Imagine Ridley Scott's Alien in which they don't receive the distress call. My expectations were for a "Sci-Fi" film, not a western that just happened to be set on a mining outpost on a moon of Jupiter. 

The film actually has a lot going for it. It's got a great cast led by Sean Connery, who plays O'Niel, a newly arrived Marshal in the colony run by Sheppard (Peter Boyle). O'Niel's wife leaves him shortly after his arrival, catching a shuttle back to Earth with his teen son because she can't take the isolated living any more. That doesn't leave O'Niel with many friends; just his Sergeant played by James Sikking and Dr. Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen), who he wins over with his no-nonsense attitude. 

The production values hold up really well 40+ years later. It's no surprise that Alien was a clear inspiration for the film's look and feel, and both films seem as if they could be set in the same universe. And having a Jerry Goldsmith score in common with Alien doesn't hurt, either! The film is directly connected to Hyams' Capricorn One, in that the mining colony is operated by Con-Amalgamate, the company responsible for the failing life-support system that set the events of that film in motion. 

While the film lacks any extraterrestrial excitement, it's got its share of gory scenes, which I recalled seeing in Richard Anobile's illustrated photo-book of the film at the time of release. The filmmakers went to great lengths to provide interesting visual representations of people being exposed to zero atmosphere. Pop goes the weasel, as it were. Colonists have been dying in strange circumstances that seem to clearly point to suicide, but O'Niel and Lazarus are able to confirm that drugs are involved. Sheppard prefers to run the colony his way — allowing the residents to work hard and play hard — and when that crosses a legal line, O'Niel has a problem with it. O'Neil determines that Sheppard is responsible for distributing the drugs throughout the colony, and when he finds and destroys a shipment, a couple of hitmen are sent to deal with him. And everyone knows it. While the clock ticks down for the arrival of the shuttle, that kicks off the High Noon aspect of the story, which works well in this setting.

Again, I think my original disappointment in the film was it not living up to what a post-Star Wars science-fiction fan's expectation were. All these years later, I have a much greater appreciation for what Hyams set out to do, which not groundbreaking, is certainly effective. It's yet another Hyams film that I will be revisiting in the future. It was nice to finally screen it on The Slaughtered Lamb screen!


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