Clint Eastwood's forty-sixth starring role is a sufficiently proper and plausible one for an actor of seventy years of age. Or anyway it has been made sufficiently so. Ample thought and talk have gone into the script to persuade us that Eastwood and no one else on earth can fix the outmoded guidance system ("It's pre-microprocessor, it's pre-everything") on the Russian communications satellite Ikon; that it must be fixed in orbit; that it must be fixed in a hurry; that it's quicker and easier to reassemble his old team of Air Force cronies than to retrain the young turks of today, MIT degrees notwithstanding. And: "Hell, ya sent up Glenn, didn't ya?" Too, the use of dubbed voices, not just Eastwood's, but Tommy Lee Jones's, Donald Sutherland's, James Garner's, James Cromwell's, in the mouths of physically well-matched younger actors, is a deft solution to the problem of a black-and-white prologue dated 1958. Jones proves to be glaringly out of place in this group: he would, in reality, have been twelve years old at the time. But that doesn't become a problem until the jump to the present day. A collateral problem, more deeply rooted, is that Jones has less reason than the others to be thankful for a juicy role that allows him to act his age. (Garner: "I'm too tired to chew.") Still, it's a pleasure to watch this bunch of old pros working together on a project that values them for their oldness. And Eastwood's Old Hollywood directing style — easygoing, sure-footed, steady-gazed — is a pleasure to watch as well, in these or in any circumstances, but especially in these. A toast to a team of old-timers would not mean as much if it were delivered with a jittery and jiggly camera. Eastwood, even so, is not the sort of director to rise much above his script, or to take a remedial pencil and eraser to it. And there is a good deal in the movie that is deflatingly routine, conventional, and crowd-conscious. But at the same time, it has many (so to speak) negative virtues. Virtues of avoidance and abstinence. No obligatory slo-mo shot of the suited-up astronauts striding shoulder to shoulder toward the camera. No overload of special effects. No walloping musical accompaniment. No operatic pumping-up and stretching-out of the dramatic climaxes. Very much to the contrary, those moments are played with a stoicism and laconism that might best be described as manly. Or synonymously be described as Eastwoodly. With Marcia Gay Harden, Loren Dean, William Devane. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.