Space Cowboys (2000)

Director:

Clint Eastwood

Writers (WGA):

Ken Kaufman (written by) &
Howard Klausner (written by)

Release Date:

4 August 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Boys will be boys.

Plot:

When a retired engineer is called upon to rescue a failing satellite, he insists that his equally old teammates accompany him into space.

Plot Keywords:

Satellite | Space | NASA | Roller Coaster | Space Shuttle

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Clint Eastwood	...	Frank Corvin
Tommy Lee Jones	...	Hawk Hawkins
Donald Sutherland	...	Jerry O'Neill
James Garner	...	Tank Sullivan
James Cromwell	...	Bob Gerson
Marcia Gay Harden	...	Sara Holland
William Devane	...	Eugene Davis
Loren Dean	...	Ethan Glance
Courtney B. Vance	...	Roger Hines
Barbara Babcock	...	Barbara Corvin
Rade Serbedzija	...	General Vostov
Blair Brown	...	Dr. Anne Caruthers
Jay Leno	...	Himself
Nils Allen Stewart	...	Tiny
Deborah Jolly	...	Cocktail Waitress

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some language.

Runtime:

130 min

Country:

USA | Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:L | USA:PG-13 (certificate #37575) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Brazil:Livre | Chile:TE | Denmark:11 | Finland:K-12/9 | France:U | Germany:12 (bw) | Hong Kong:IIA | Netherlands:AL | New Zealand:PG | Norway:11 | Portugal:M/12 | Spain:T | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | UK:PG | South Korea:12 | Singapore:PG | Philippines:G

Filming Locations:

Agua Dulce, California, USA

Company:

Clipsal Films

Trivia:

NASA offered their "vomit comet" plane that can create weightlessness, for filming (it was previously used in Apollo 13 (1995) for the weightless scenes). Clint Eastwood turned down the offer for fear that the older actors would be made too sick to film.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Hawk launches the missile platform toward the moon, he aims straight for it. Due to the moon's orbit around the Earth, that would result in the moon shifting considerably in position before Hawk would ever have got there. In order to hit the moon, the platform would have to be aimed further along the moon's orbit.

Quotes:

Eugene 'Gene' Davis: Space will never be the same.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Jeopardy!: (#22.57)" (2005)

Soundtrack:

TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT

Yea right, we have John Glenn to thank for this one.

Space Cowboys builds its humor around a quartet of aged characters who seize their first and last opportunity to fulfill their lifelong goal of going into space. Space Cowboys satirizes the traditionally romanticized conception of the young hero by portraying its characters as sagacious --yet imperfect-- old men.

Space Cowboys revisits its embittered protagonist, the retired Air Force test pilot Frank Corvin (Clint Eastwood), forty years after a humiliating episode where he is replaced by a monkey for a 1958 NASA mission to space. Unexpectedly, Frank is summoned by ex-boss and NASA official Bob Gerson (James Cromwell) to fix a Russian communications satellite that is soon to crash, and that contains the obsolete guidance system that he and his colleagues designed for the earlier satellite, Skylab. Realizing he is the only one who can fix the system, Frank coerces the desperate Bob into rehiring his old team: pilot Hawk Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones), structural engineer Jerry O'Neil (Donald Sutherland), and navigator Tank Sullivan (James Garner) --all seemingly unlikely candidates for the task at hand. Gaining the trust of NASA Engineer Sara Holland (Marcia Gay Harden) and the mistrust of flight director Eugene Davis (William Devane), the reunited "Team Daedalus" face the biggest mission of their lives.

Space Cowboys, which benefits from the performances of four seasoned actors, successfully establishes its four main characters as the source for all its comedy. Space Cowboys' initial introduction of its protagonist (in the brief black and white sequence which includes the humiliating incident with the monkey), offers a convenient setup which allows the ellipsis of forty years to hyperbolize the four characters' emotional states and to justify their subsequent actions. Furthermore, this initial sequence, which also depicts the four characters as audacious US Air Force pilots, establishes itself as a point of reference against which the present inconsequential lives of Frank, Hawk, Jerry and Tank will be contrasted.

Space Cowboys subtly and effectively creates an analogy between the characters and the troublesome "guidance system": while the men's present occupations are portrayed as rather useless, the guidance system's design is described as old and obsolete, yet neither the men nor the system are entirely expendable. (This suggested duality of man/system is emphasized by Frank's ironic statement: "...it wasn't designed for this duration.") While Space Cowboys draws its humor from the characters' efforts to revert to their prior occupation and regain importance, the second part of the film --the mission-- serves a dramatic purpose, where the characters' true mission is to disprove the others' belief that they are outdated and replaceable. Narratively, Space Cowboys' space sequence does little more than simply prolong the characters' task of proving themselves, yet visually, it offers eye-catching special effects and set design.

Nevertheless, Space Cowboys succeeds more as a comedy that deconstructs its heroes than as a drama that exalts their heroism.