Capricorn One
by Peter Hyams
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DVD details
Actor: Brenda Vaccaro, Elliott Gould, James Brolin, O.J. Simpson, Sam WaterstonDirector: Peter Hyams
Brand: Lions Gate
Cinematographer: Bill Butler
Writer: Peter Hyams
Editor: James Mitchell
Producer: Michael I. Rachmil
Producer: Paul Lazarus III
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 123 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-02-18
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Capricorn One
DVD Review: Houston, we have a problem!
Summary: 4 Stars
The 1970s were a time rife with left-wing conspiracy theories. Why not? The New Left hippie counterculture of the 1960s was just starting to settle down into "real" life, that dull drudgery of working every day for the man and paying bills so you can squirt out a couple of kids who'll soak up every spare dime you've got yet still hate you when they reach adolescence. Yay! To keep the experience real, the ex-hippies made sure to believe in every half-baked kook conspiracy that came down the pike. The conspiracy to kill JFK. The conspiracy to kill RFK. The conspiracy to kill MLK, Jr. Alien invaders. The evil goings on over at the CIA. J. Edgar Hoover in a dress. Anything was fair game for the acidheads. Heck, they're still up to their old tricks today with the hoodoo about global warming (Yeah, right. They said it'd ice over in the 1970s--if overpopulation didn't kill us off first) and the whole Election 2000 imbroglio. The election of George W. Bush and the concomitant misadventures in Iraq will provide conspiracy scenarios well into the middle of the century--or until the last Baby Boomer in the last pair of Depends coughs out their last breath.
All of this nonsense brings us to Peter Hyams's 1978 conspiracy thriller "Capricorn One," a lesser entry in the 1970s "paranoia will destroy ya" subgenre. It's notable today for the presence of one O.J. Simpson, sans bloody glove and any knowledge that in roughly fifteen years he'll kill his ex-wife and her male companion. There might've been a white Bronco somewhere in the movie--I don't remember. What I do know is this: "Capricorn One" is an entertaining, if somewhat laughable jaunt, through the recesses of Hollywood paranoia, New Left fantasy, and Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain haircut. The plot, if you choose to accept it, deals with three astronauts--Colonel Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Commander John Walker (Simpson), and Lt. Colonel Peter Willis (Sam Waterston)--and their sudden realization that the much anticipated trip to Mars ain't going to happen. Instead of disappointing the public, however, the government goes through the motions of a launch but stashes the astronauts away in an airplane hanger out in the desert. They plan on faking the Mars landing. The hanger has television cameras, a fake lander, a bogus landscape, and enough government secrecy to keep everything under wraps for years. Or maybe not.
Of course, some young shooter at mission control notices some glitch in the computer system that doesn't seem right. He properly notifies his superiors of the problem but is troubled when they don't seem that concerned. He mentions it in passing to his reporter friend Robert Caulfield (Elliot Gould). Caulfield doesn't think it's anything to get excited about until his buddy suddenly disappears without a trace, and bad things start happening to him. Like cops showing up at your apartment and finding drugs you didn't know you had in the bathroom, or driving your car down the road only to discover the brakes are suddenly nonexistent. These are the seminal markers of government conspiracy, and Caulfield (a true journalist/leftist/hero/ in the vein of Woodward and Bernstein) knows this. The rest of "Capricorn One" turns into a race between Caulfield on the one hand, doggedly trying to uncover the evil government conspiracy, and on the other hand the three astronauts trying to save their lives because certain developments suddenly make them think that the government might not want any witnesses around. Come to think of it, does the government ever want anyone around to witness its nefarious schemes and manipulations? Nah.
I noted that "Capricorn One" is a laughable jaunt, and it is. Elliot Gould is a hoot as the over the top reporter Caulfield. A throbbing forehead vein in human form, Gould's character chomps at the bit to prove the big bad government is pulling yet another sleazy scam. He screams at his boss, the man, and anyone that stands in his way. Only by posing heroically and running a lot can Caulfield get to the bottom of the faked Capricorn mission. It's unintentionally hilarious. I mean, the speeded up reels of his car careening through town without brakes evokes memories of the Keystone Kops, and the slow motion run with him and Brubaker at the end has to be one of the most feminine conclusions I've ever seen in a film. No wonder both of these chaps ended up married to Barbra Streisand. Yet the film does offer a few thrills (including a plane chase with Telly Savalas) and some good acting from Hal Holbrook as Dr. James Kelloway, a NASA scientist torn between his loyalties to the astronauts and his attachments to the space program. The movie has some good dialogue too, mostly seen in a monologue delivered by Holbrook at the beginning of the film.
The disc I watched "Capricorn One" on had zero in the way of supplements. No trailers, no commentary tracks, no behind the scenes footage, no deleted/extended scenes. No confession from O.J. Simpson, either. It's an all right film, worth a watch once maybe, but the whole idea is sort of outdated and laughable. How sinister is a conspiracy to hide the fact that we aren't landing on Mars? Not much today, but back during the Cold War the competition with the Soviet Union over who did what first in space had serious repercussions. If the Russians thought we put men on Mars, they'd also think our nuclear weapons technology was superior as well. So when viewed that way, "Capricorn One" has a certain cachet. It also holds some allure, I'd imagine, for the nuts who think NASA faked the moon landings. And the two or three Elliot Gould fans. Give it a shot if you fall into those categories.
Description of Capricorn One
CAPRICORN ONE - DVD MovieThanks to repeated showings on cable television and home video, this speculative thriller has built quite a loyal following since its release in 1978. The provocative "what if?" scenario still packs a punch, even if it is not always believable. 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, and director Peter Hyams turns up the tension with an exciting chase sequence involving Telly Savalas as an eccentric barnstormer who comes to Gould's aid. --Jeff Shannon
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