Film Friday: Outland (1981)

Outland is one of my favorite science fiction films. It’s gritty. It’s realistic. It’s got cool characters, memorable dialog, and an as~kicking Sean Connery. What could be better? What’s more, Outland turns a certain commie western on its head.

** spoiler alert**

To satisfy the resource hungry earth, Con-Amalgamate, i.e. “the company,” has set up mines all over the solar system. These mines are like mining towns in the old west, complete with bars, prostitutes, and federal marshals, though it's all contained within a single station. The marshals rotate between stations every year or two and the newest marshal on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons, is Marshal William T. O’Neill (Sean Connery).

It doesn’t take O’Neill long to discover the miners are taking a drug called polydichloric euthymol, which makes you work like a dog and then makes you psychotic. The thing is, O’Neill isn’t the best or the brightest and he has a fairly poor reputation. So everyone assumes he’ll take some money and look the other way. But he doesn’t. And when he doesn’t, the mine’s General Manager Sheppard (Peter Boyle), decides O’Neill must die. Soon, everyone at the mine is waiting for the arrival of the next shuttle. . . which carries two hired killers who are coming for Marshal O’Neill.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Outland is essentially a science fiction remake of High Noon. Though there is a key difference.

High Noon was written by communist sympathizer Carl Foreman. Foreman intentionally wrote the sheriff character (played by Gary Cooper) to be weak and anti-heroic: Cooper was a tough and brave sheriff until he got married to a Quaker who hates all violence, no matter what the reason. This puts Cooper in an awkward position when he learns that some criminals he sent to prison are returning to town to seek revenge. In the past he would have stood against them, but now he’s afraid to because he doesn’t want to risk losing his wife. He tries to unload his duty on the townsfolk, but they are cowardly and hypocritical, and they even angrily blame him for bringing the bad guys upon them. In the end, he has no choice but to fight. And the lesson Foreman hoped to impart from this was there is no place for heroism in Cold-War America.

Outland starts with a similar set up. Connery is neither morally strong nor imbued with a sense of heroism. His wife wants him to quit and go home to Earth; she even leaves with their son to force Connery's hand, leaving Connery a ticket to join them. And all the people he meets are as corrupt, cowardly and hypocritical as the townsfolk in High Noon.

But then something changes. Unlike Cooper, who stands alone, Connery finds an ally and she is one heck of an ally! Frances Sternhagen plays Dr. Lazarus, a cranky, nasty, old company doctor. She doesn’t like Connery. In fact, she likes no one. But after she realizes there’s more to Connery than meets the eye, she decides to help him. Of all the mine employees, she’s the only one who lifts a finger to help Connery and she does it because it’s the right thing to do. And that makes her the exact opposite of the message Foreman was sending in High Noon. Her actions tell us that heroes make a difference and anyone, in any profession, at any stage of their lives can be a hero.

There’s another key difference too. Unlike Cooper, who is afraid and conflicted and only fights because he must (in fact, you get the feeling he’s just too afraid to run away), Connery fights to prove to himself that he’s a better man than he and everyone else thinks. This leads to what I think is one of the finest acting moments in Connery’s career, as he explains:

They sent me here to this pile of shit because they think I belong here. I want to find out if . . . . well if they're right. There's a whole machine that works because everybody does what they are supposed to. And I found out . . . . I was supposed to be something I didn't like. . . . That's what's in the program. That's my rotten little part in the rotten machine. . . . I don't like it, so I'm going to find out if they're right.

Connery needs to prove to himself that he's a decent man. That is a powerful motive. It also makes him the anti-Cooper. Whereas Cooper is the perfect man fallen, Connery is the imperfect man rising. Cooper teaches that it’s pointless to fight evil, Connery teaches that it’s essential to our very beings.

It is through these two changes that Peter Hyams, the writer and director of Outland completely flips the intended meaning of High Noon. And interestingly, as something of a final slap, right after Connery’s motive for staying is revealed, Sternhagen tells Connery, “your wife is one stupid lady.” This is a total repudiation of the wife who wanted him to flee. . . the same wife who stole Gary Cooper’s courage. Was this intentional by Hyams? I can’t say that it was, but it sure sounds like it.

Beyond this, the rest of the film is quite good too. The effects are gritty and seem very real of what mankind’s first true commercial venture into space will probably be like. The treatment of zero gravity and zero atmosphere are accurate and excellent. The mine itself is no-frills and exactly what you would expect. Living quarters, dining quarters and the police station all feel genuine. The characters are likable too. And the dialog is excellent. For one thing, you get the kind of dialog you would expect. The characters all seem competent in their careers and talk shop except when the plot intrudes. Much of the dialog is highly quotable, such as almost anything Sternhagen says (“I’m unpleasant, I’m not stupid”) or some of the policing moments (“They’re still sponging him off the walls” and “you don’t just lose nuclear detonators and then find them”). But my favorite line comes from Connery telling Sternhagen that she needs to provide him with a report:

“I’d like a report of all the incidents in the last six months. I’d like it soon, or I might just kick your nasty ass all over this room. That's a marshal joke.”

That line has come in useful more than once.