The movie 'Outland' was styled as 'High Noon in space' by many people and the similarities are easily seen. It's deliberately designed to replicate the shear difficulty and time involved in travel and defence in the Old West. It also has lots of guns and metal swinging bar doors like in the old saloons and a cranky doctor with a funny name. Directed by Peter Hyams, it has a lot of the high quality touches he brought to a lot of dodgy movies such as 'Sudden Death' and '2010'. Fortunately no one fights a penguin mascot in this movie as they did in that latter example!
Now, to the plot, which takes place almost entirely on a remote mining station on one of Jupiter's moons. The station is 70 hours by shuttle from the nearest supply station, and the journey home to the Earth takes an average of a year in suspended animation. In short, those miners are a long way away from civilization. The new Marshall O'Niel is rapidly drawn into conflict with the local company boss, and slowly uncovers a drugs ring being run by the company to improve productivity, whose corruptions extend even into the local police. Finally, after a large body count rises up, his wife has left him to go back to Earth with their dopey son, and he finally pricks the local doctor's conscience into action (she's called Dr Lazarus), it comes down to a prolonged battle sequence between O'Niel (well played by Sean Connery) and the boss Shepherd's (Peter Boyle) imported goons. Those goons come in with the full 70 hour warning of the shuttle ride, allowing some tension to rise.
Now, 'Outland' is actually a rather impressive movie, although a little gory and graphic for my tastes. The visuals may be a little gratuitous at times but Connery grounds it with his usual gravitas. Did anyone ever have more gravitas than Sean Connery? He just forms a gravity well on screen that pulls your eyes to him no matter what's happening. It's a solid supporting cast, where no time is wasted on theatrics. I reserve special mention for Frances Sternhagen as Dr Lazarus, who was actually awesome in some bizarre way I can't define. It may be just her breaking out of the mold of her 'Cheers' character Esther Clavin in my head. Oh, how I like Frances Sternhagen. Ahem, Sternhagen worship aside, the cast is solid although Peter Boyle is a bit unconvincing. Maybe it was the wig being stamped on his head under that baseball cap that was inhibiting him.
In a science fiction movie, and this is on the 'hard' side of science fiction, visual effects are key and those shown here in this movie were great for 1981. The only way you might consider them bad is if you compare them to the near-contemporary 'The Empire Strikes Back' which was unparallelled in its efforts and made EVERYTHING look bad. The music is an excellent Jerry Goldsmith score, defying my view of him being someone who is usually overrated. The ending is a good, if somewhat standard, on-the-run battle between O'Niel and the assassins which can be considered a technical and thrilling suspense without being particularly memorable.
On the whole, I like 'Outland'. It's a curiosity and an example of Connery in the odd part of his career, that portion where leading men should really disappear and skip 'graying' for the eventual white haired distinguished look. Here he does it better than he would in other examples. It's a strong effort, and I think that most people would appreciate it, although if you're prone to boredom you might want to stay away. Oh, and if you're sensitive then be ready to avert the eyes from time to time.
O.
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