With the noted exception of the JFK assassination, no single event has been the subject of more conspiracy theories than the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969.
Written and directed by Peter Hyams (“Hanover Street,” “The Star Chamber”), “Capricorn One” is a fictionalized Apollo 11-ish story about a manned mission to Mars that will lend a certain guarded level of credence to the plethora of claims levied by every Apollo 11 tinfoil-hat wearer.
The movie opens with little to no backstory, which is good. Mere minutes before takeoff, astronauts Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Peter Willis (Sam Waterston), and John Walker (O.J. Simpson) are ordered to exit the Capricorn One rocket ship, without explanation and are whisked away to an undisclosed location.
Get With the Program
Kelloway delivers a five-minute uninterrupted monologue that is equal parts history lesson, rah-rah pep talk, space exploration nostalgia, stern lecture, and a plea to do “the right thing.” Kelloway also states that a subcontractor responsible for the on-board life-support system overcharged and underdelivered and, had the men been on the ship, they’d be dead within weeks after departure.The four men then leave the room, pass through a few doors, and enter what looks like an airport hangar-turned-makeshift-movie-set with Kelloway shifting into hard-sell mode. He amps up the pressure and underscores the need for the astronauts to “fall in line,” punctuated with a not-so-veiled blackmail reference to the men’s families. This threat infers that, if they don’t participate in this orchestrated ruse, their wives and children will die, thus securing the men’s forced and resigned cooperation.
At the 15-minute mark, the movie transforms into a parallel narrative, splitting time between the happenings at NASA and the dubious career choices of reporter Robert Caulfield (Elliott Gould). As we find out later, he bungles many of his assignments and is equally unsuccessful at hitting on colleague Judy Drinkwater (Karen Black).
Caulfield is friends with Elliot Whitter (Robert Walden), an engineer at NASA who is monitoring the astronaut’s vital signs and discovers some discrepancies, which he reports to Kelloway. These concerns are brushed off yet succeed in presenting Kelloway with another unexpected mess he’ll have to deal with.
Apolitical
Mr. Hyams also includes a brief yet crucial subplot involving two politicians on opposite sides of the space program; this underscores our own government’s perpetual funding of assorted pet projects, which frequently yield little to no tangible results. The ability of Mr. Hyams to call out sleazy bureaucrats while not taking any ideological side is truly impressive.With the exception of the acting-challenged Mr. Simpson, likely hired because he was a recently-retired, then-popular NFL player, the casting choices by Mr. Hyams were spot-on.
As the de facto leader of the three astronauts, Mr. Brolin delivers what is arguably the best performance of his modestly successful career. Mr. Waterston, generally a guy who plays very serious, emotionless characters, is given the chore of providing most of the welcomed comic relief, and he delivers in spades.
David Huddleston as a blow-hard politico, Brenda Vaccaro as Brubaker’s wife, and the afore-mentioned Black do well with their brief screen time.
Holbrook Is the Man
For me, the movie belongs to Holbrook, one of the most underrated actors in history. Any movie is only as good as the villain is convincing, and Holbrook’s rendering as the stone-cold, emotionally detached Kelloway is superb. In the hands of a lesser-talented performer, Kelloway would be all bluster, fangs, and claws, but Holbrook’s staid approach makes Kelloway disquietingly and disturbingly evil.Unfortunately, “Capricorn One” doesn’t end nearly as well as it starts, and all of it all turns on a dime.
You’ll know the exact moment when everything goes south with the arrival of Telly Savalas as a motor-mouth, insulting, fish-out-of-water, crop-dusting pilot. Once the Savalas character shows up, the movie takes on a farcical, almost borderline slapstick tone. It vacuums up all of the danger, intrigue, and ennui of the set-up, and replaces it with pro forma, TV movie-of-the-week drivel.
Theatrical poster for “Capricorn One.” (Warner Bros.)
