Capricorn One Movie Review

An Apollo-style mission to Mars stalls because Americans lack the brains to build a decent spacecraft. To ensure continued NASA funds, Hal Holbrook arranges a phony Martian landing for TV cameras in a remote desert sound-stage. Astronauts James Brolin, O.J. Simpson, and Sam Waterston learn the scheme calls for their “heroic” demise to ensure silence, and they try to escape. Remarkably, the besmirched space agency cooperated in filming this intriguing but paper-thin conspiracy thriller, mixing a disaster-pic cast with Water-gate-era cynicism at its peak (even the Congressional Medal of Honor earns an insult). There's a nice pair of menacing Unmarked Black Helicopters, but half the fun is spotting the mistakes in Peter Hyams’ script. Still, you can bet there are paranoiacs in rural compounds who swear this plotline is true. Stirring Jerry Goldsmith musical score.

1978 (R) 123m/C Elliott Gould, James Brolin, Brenda Vaccaro, O.J. Simpson, Hal Holbrook, Sam Waterston, Karen Black, Telly Savalas; D: Peter Hyams; W: Peter Hyams; C: Bill Butler; M: Jerry Goldsmith. VHS, Beta, LV FOX