It's tough to find a place more remote than a moon orbiting the planet Jupiter. Just to get back and forth from Earth, you'll spend a year in suspended animation. Why would anyone want to go? There's a marketable mineral on this moon, and that means big bucks for big business and plenty of jobs for the common folk. But just don't expect posh accommodations. You'll face claustrophobic hallways, caged-in cafeterias, steaming rusty plumbing and deadly silence outside. But people pretty much accept the conditions, work very hard, and life goes on...until some of the workers begin to freak out, then end up dead. Could it be just the stress of such an extreme place to make your living? It seems logical...until the body count continues to rise. And, curiously, the mining company doesn't seem too concerned. Enter Sean Connery as Marshall WT O'Niel. First, it's his job to figure out why someone would want to go outside without a pressure suit. Then he has a hostage crisis to resolve and mop up...pretty soon it becomes clear that there's more going on here than rotten work conditions taking a toll. Strangely, the more the Marshall pokes around, the more aggravated the company becomes. Plus, his men seem pretty inept, almost as though they are working against him. The townspeople are too afraid to help, too. Seems only the local doctor is willing to stand with him, even as killers are summoned to help the company smooth out this little inconvenience to their mining business...Now hold it! Wasn't this supposed to be a science fiction flick? Forget it. This is as classic as a Western gets. (Mining town. Big business. Lots of town folk. Tough Marshall vs Bad Guys coming to kill him -- get it?) O'Neil is Gary Cooper in High Noon. He is Wyatt Earp, with his own female version of Doc Holiday, played so nicely by Frances Sternhagen (with more than a healthy touch of Katherine Hepburn in her wraspy voice, interaction with the Marshall, and abrasive character that will stand up to any man) But make no mistake, as good as Sternhagen is, it's Connery's turf and this Scott is as American here as John Wayne. He won't leave, even when he knows the killers are coming for him. His wife does, though, taking his young son with her. (Just like High Noon). It's really no surprise to see space as the new genre for Westerns, when you consider Gene Roddenberry was able to sell Star Trek to TV execs almost 20 years earlier because it reminded everyone of the Wagontrain-style films and shows of the time. ("Space...the final frontier") And, of course, there's Star Wars, where the cantina on Mos Isley might as well have had cowboys inside the way it was a gunslinger hangout. Connery has been passed-off as an American in The Presidio and The Untouchables, but in both cases as an immigrant who kept his Old World brogue and bravado. Here, Earth is a distant place. O'Niel's son has never even seen it. You never hear where on our planet he and his family are from (But with his wife also having an accent, it's suggested that their home probably isn't the US) But standing as the lone law man, outnumbered and outgunned -- the American themes of the Western are loud and clear. Hey, if we can have Clint Eastwood go to Spain, to make Westerns for Italian director Sergio Leone -- why not stage a classic Western on a moon of Jupiter? The plot is helped along by brilliant use of sound (which was nominated for an Oscar) I don't think I'm giving away anything when I say in one fight, O'Niel's face is being pushed ever closer toward the hot grease of a french-fry fryer, and when you hear the cracking and sizzling, you just clamp your teeth and expect to see burns. There are blasts of his shotgun that seem to go right through you, too. (No lasers here.) If you like Connery, Westerns, or just fun movies, this is a good rent. And for extra credit, pick up High Noon, True Grit, High Plains Drifter, Tombstone, and Pale Rider. You'll reach a spot in each flick where the scenery and location pretty much disappear and what really matters is the clash between good and evil and the sidekicks each team collects along the way. Good entertainment.
