| RATING: | 80% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Clever political thriller with a ridiculous premiss that still works well on an emotional level. Like a Hitchcock thriller the director here - Peter Hyams - employs a judicious mix of thrills, suspense and humor that all comes together in a near-perfect totality despite the sometime wayward plotting.
Where the film is really fine is the fact that it comments subtly throughout about fiction being a lie that tells the truth. In a declining culture it becomes necessary to tell lies about the nature of that culture in order to preserve the illusion of success. The irony here is that the lies make the inevitable decline all the speedier because the lie can only be enforced at the point of a gun. Once you get involved in a lie it controls you, you do not control it.
The acting and writing are also superb and the characters well-differentiated - especially Hal HOLBROOK who almost manages to make this government-conspiracy nonsense believable. The ethical themes are well pointed and make this all the more compelling. Moreover, this movie makes clear why manned space-travel in the modern world (2010) is pointless until costs can be reduced, the effort privatized and rescue missions made possible.
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