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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»1980s Movies»Movies 1981
    Movies 1981 Movies O 3 Mins Read

    Outland (1981)

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    In a titanium mining colony called Con-Amalgamate 27 on Jupiter’s volcanic moon, Io, workers have been taking an illegal super-amphetamine to increase their output so they can earn overtime bonuses.

    But after ten months of the stuff, they become psychotic and start to disconnect their air hoses or step out of airlocks or brandish knives – anything to get their bodies to explode and make a nice, suicidal splash.

    A self-proclaimed space western, Outland is more of a blow-’em-up than a shoot-’em-up, featuring half a dozen brain or gut splatterings.

    Of course, writer-director Peter Hyams intends Io to be a fantasy extension of our own drug-ridden, decadent and manic present-day Earth. He also wants Sean Connery, as space marshal William O’Neil, to function as the Last Angry Man in the universe.

    He’s the only one who’s ever tried to stop the drug trade. The other marshals have all been cowed by the power of the conglomerates, represented here by the mining station’s manager, Mark Sheppard (Peter Boyle), Con-Am’s golf-loving bad guy.

    Everyone compared Connery to Gary Cooper in High Noon (1952), but the analogy doesn’t hold.

    Cooper was struggling to save his newly civilised town from the bad men who’d terrorised it in the past. But Connery should be striving to save the workers from themselves.

    It would make more sense for him to start a drug education program than to immediately start mowing down the dealers. He never even tries to call in reinforcements from the nearest space station, which is only seventy hours away.

    He thus seems as stupid as he is agile, nullifying the suspense.

    Almost every detail of the plot is off. Even on a small moon, would the workers be sleeping in berths smaller than a roll-top desk? The pipeline workers in Alaska were more comfortably quartered.

    And the “poignant” subplot about Connery’s troubled family life misfires: his wife, Carol (Kika Markham) is a cold fish and his son, Paul (Nicholas Barnes) looks cretinous. He’s better off without them.

    Connery himself – though fitter than ever and still able to command an audience with his charisma – looks glum. Perhaps this great big bruin of a man knows that in a shoddy sideshow like this, he’s just another dancing bear.

    Sean Connery died peacefully in his sleep at his home in the Bahamas on 31 October 2020 having been unwell for some time. He was 90.

    Marshal William T. O’Neil
    Sean Connery
    Mark Sheppard
    Peter Boyle
    Dr Lazarus
    Frances Sternhagen
    Sgt. Montone
    James B. Sikking
    Carol O’Neil
    Kika Markham
    Ballard
    Clarke Peters
    Sagan
    Steven Berkoff
    Tarlow
    John Ratzenberger
    Paul O’Neil
    Nicholas Barnes
    Lowell
    Manning Redwood
    Flo Spector
    Pat Starr
    Nelson
    Hal Galili
    Hughes
    Angus MacInnes
    Walters
    Stuart Milligan
    Cane
    Eugene Lipinski
    Slater
    Norman Chancer
    Fanning
    Ron Travis
    Morton
    Anni Domingo
    Hill
    Bill Bailey
    Caldwell
    Chris Williams

    Director
    Peter Hyams

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