STARRING: Elliot
Gould, James Brolin, Brenda Vaccaro, Sam Waterson, OJ Simpson, Hal Holbrook
1978, 127 Minutes, Directed by: Peter Hyams
Description:James Brolin, Sam Waterston, and O.J. Simpson star as
three astronauts who agree to spare the government embarrassment by faking
their historic landing on Mars after their spacecraft is determined to be
unsafe for blastoff. When a scheming mission controller (Hal Holbrook) plots
to kill the astronauts in a staged capsule fire, the trio embarks on a
dangerous mission to expose the truth. Elliott Gould costars as the
journalist determined to crack the conspiracy. —
Amazon.com
A cash-strapped NASA fakes a manned landing on Mars for general public consumption in
order to get more funds. Trouble begins when the
spaceship in which the "astronauts" were supposed to have "returned" in
burns out in the Earth's atmosphere and the astronauts on it are supposed to
be "dead". Suddenly the astronauts are
very expendable and this film becomes a chase movie set in the Nevada
desert.
How no-one could see that
the landings were a fake is a mystery - especially when one of the
astronauts' mother talks to him (while he is supposedly on Mars) and there
is no visible time lapse in their conversation. In reality there would be a
lapse of about twenty minute since that's how long it would take a radio
signal from the Earth to reach Mars!
Glaring plot-holes aside,
Peter Hyams (who would later on direct Van Damme in Time Cop)
knows his stuff and spins an otherwise believable action thriller yarn without any of the
over-the-top Die
Hard-type heroics that usually destroy credulity. Trivia fans might be interested to
know that this film stars the one and only O.J. Simpson!
Trivia fans might also
have deducted that Capricorn One was without a doubt "inspired" by
conspiracy theories that the moon landings were actually faked by NASA. What is surprising however
is that the film was made with the full co-operation of NASA -
especially when there are no second guesses as to who the bad guys in the
movie are!
