Outland (1981, Dir. Peter Hyams)
Synopsis:
In a mining colony based on Jupiter‘s moon, Io, newly arrived Federal Marshal O‘Neil (Sean Connery), starts to question whether several recent cases of workers going insane and committing suicide might be connected. He enlists the help of the colony’s doctor (Frances Sternhagen) and between them they uncover a conspiracy that includes O’Neil’s fellow marshals and even the general manager, Sheppard (Peter Boyle), who sends for professional hitman to eliminate O’Neil. Abandoned by his men and with the general population of the colony refusing to support him, O’Neil must use all his cunning to defeat the hitmen and stop Sheppard.
I’ve mentioned my love of Peter Hyams‘ work several times during the course of this blog and felt it was high time I got around to writing about this film which, along with Running Scared is one of my favorites. It was a film I discovered, along with with Westworld, THX 1138 and a number of other cult sci-fi classics from the 70s and 80s through the Beyond Vision series of widescreen VHS video releases (there was also a companion Beyond Terror series for horror which introduced me to Wolfen, The Hunger, IT and others) from the mid 90’s. The film has been accurately but also rather dismissively described since its release as „High Noon in space“. However, this sci-fi western has a number of great setpieces, a superb visual style heavily reminiscent of the first Alien film along with an equally great score by Alien’s composer Jerry Goldsmith, as well as several superb performances from Frances Sternhagen, Peter Boyle, Hyams regular James B. Sikking and even Connery himself, giving quite an understated performance that, for me, marks the transition point between his 70s post Bond character roles and re-ascension to big budget box office stardom at the end of the 80s through to the end of his career.
Connery’s Marshall O’ Neil is neither invincible nor perfect and certainly more prone to brooding emotions that he finds hard to express than many of the other characters that Connery has played. There’s no love interest, other than his largely absent wife (Kika Markham) and the relationship between him and Sternhagen’s doctor (which is a very rare example in Connery’s films of a male/female relationship which is both platonic and where he and the female lead are roughly the same age) never dissolves into sentimentality and even when (as at the end of the film) they do have a moment together they characters are deliberately awkward with one another, which feels refreshingly honest. Watching Connery’s performance again for this post I was particularly struck by his reactions when he’s talking to his son on the video call, when he knows he might never see him again and the scene when he explains to Sternhagen why he’s doing all this. Few film critics give Connery much credit as an emotional actor, but in both these scenes his understated reticence gives the character a genuine depth.
Likewise, Sternhagen, who’d already had a lengthy career by the time of this film, but who would become even known in the 90s thanks to her supporting role in the adaptations of Stephen King’s Misery and The Mist, elevates the rather stereotypical role of the doctor, who becomes O‘Neil‘s sole ally, into something much more amusing, with her character’s irreverent humor providing a nice foil for Connery’s taciturn marshal and their scenes together are some of the best in the film.
Rounding out the cast are quite a few well known British or American film and tv actors: Steven Berkoff, Clarke Peters, PH Moriarty, John Ratzenberger and even (blink and you’ll miss him) Gary Olsen, from tv‘s 2 Point 4 Children — a reasonably popular 90s UK sitcom, which will mean nothing to any American readers, or even any UK ones, if they’re under 40.
This would be Hyams‘ last movie before he began working as his own cinematographer — a relative rarity in Hollywood, even today. As with many of his previous films, such as The Star Chamber (which I looked at for this blog a few years ago), despite working with a cinematographer, Hyams like Ridley Scott, always manages to stamp his own distinctive visual style on the piece. Like Scott, he likes to use a lot of contrast in the lighting, using smoke to flatten out the shadows and create fill even when the light sources are very sharp. Sadly, a lot of the detail was lost in the original dvd transfer, which was far murkier than my widescreen VHS from the 90s. Fortunately the more recent Blu-Ray appears to have rectified this.
The score by Jerry Goldsmith (reunited with Hyams, who he had worked with on Capricorn One) makes the film feel as if it inhabits the same cinematic universe as the first Alien film — which most definitely works in its favor. Goldsmith’s score, which does borrow sonic elements of his score for Alien — rubbed gongs and string pizzicatos through an echo chamber, rumbling dissonant brass, clanging percussion — is often regarded as slightly inferior to his earlier score, when it shouldn’t at all. The superb re-issue on double Cd by Film Score Monthly from a few years back is well worth tracking down, as it not only features the complete score but also a number of unused cues as well as Michael Boddicker’s proto techno source music for the rec room scenes.
Hyams has always been incredibly skilled at directing action sequences and whilst the location rules out his trademark car chase scenes, the superb chase on foot as Connery pursues one of the drug dealers through the cramped walkways of the colony’s living quarters or the tense showdown between Connery and the various men sent to kill him both inside and outside the space station more than compensate. That said, it’s best to just ignore the film’s rather silly conceit of having both Marshalls and assassins running around firing pump action shotguns in a pressurized environment, or the stupidity of those deciding to fire them at someone standing in front of a wall or window. These are clearly meant to be throwbacks to the Western genre, as is the final showdown between Connery and Peter Boyle’s corrupt general manager which is seemingly resolved with one punch.
However these are minor gripes about a film that I’ve not only loved since I was a teenager but also one that deserves to be as highly regarded as Hyams’ other, better known work, from the period. The film’s visual style, the (for the time, groundbreaking) effects, the performances and superb score all hold up to this day, so if you’ve never seen the film or haven’t seen it in a while, do yourself a favor and take the transport shuttle back to the colony.
