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High Noon in outer space? Starring James Bond? Yes, please. Written and directed by Peter Hyams (The Presidio, Timecop, 2010), Outland – upon its initial release in 1981 – failed to win over most critics. With a stunning high definition transfer, it can be suggested that Father Time has certainly been kind to this sci-fi western.
Outland is old-fashioned and perhaps a little underdeveloped when it comes to the villains, but its workhorse-like spunk is unrelenting. Snaking by on its future-shock settings (a mining facility on Jupiter’s moon, Io) and a tough-as-nails performance from Sean Connery, Outland offers a bit of mystery and intrigue as it capitalizes on the success of Ridley Scott’s Alien in look and tone.
William T. O'Niel (Sean Connery), sent to be Federal District Marshall for Con-Am #27 (a moon-based mining community) and his family discover just how isolated they are. There might be 2,144 individuals working in the facility but O’Niel’s wife (Kika Markham) wants her son to see the sky back on Earth. She doesn’t want him to continue to be raised around hardcore and dangerous types that work the mines.
When Marshall O’Neil hears that an alarming number of workers are suddenly committing suicide for no reason, he starts to investigate and she starts to panic. She decides to leave the facility with her son. O’Niel is hurt by her decision to leave, but understands what his job is and he won’t leave until it is completed.
After being lectured by Sheppard (Peter Boyle), the general manager of the mining operation, about the importance of letting the workers have their fun at the risk of breaking a few rules, O’Niel goes with his gut feeling and investigate the deaths. He’s an outsider and can’t seem to win over his officers. As the suicides continue, he enlists the help of Dr. Marion Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen) and learns that 28 workers have died suspiciously in the past six months.
He works tirelessly to put clues together and, eventually, finds himself hunted by some bounty hunters as he whittles the mystery down to an inherent evil inside the corporation’s facility. It’s a speedy thriller that – while completely dedicated to the science fiction atmosphere – casts that aspect as secondary to the plot. Of course, we know the person responsible for the deaths. I suppose this is a minor flaw in the film; none of the storylines are surprises. And, with, the arrival of the bounty hunters and flashes of clocks ticking down the minutes, the nods to Fred Zinneman’s High Noon become more than obvious.
It’s one man against the system.
Hyams was told by the studio NOT to write a western and so he did just that. At the time, westerns were certainly out of style in Hollywood. What Hyams did could be classified as theft by some but he really wanted that western. He took the themes of High Noon, uncomplicated the characters, and then placed it in space to deflect the studio stuffed suits. It worked. The tone is much darker than High Noon and – while the characters are a bit on the pulpy side of juice – the movie crackles with crime and mystery and a rough sense of justice.
Jerry Goldsmith's atonal and inharmonious score is as haunting and surreal as production designer Philip Harrison's sets. Add on John Stears's special effects – which includes the first use of IntroVision - allowed foreground, midground and background elements to be combined in-camera and you have a dark and very real sci-fi environment.
This isn’t Gene Roddenberry’s version of the future. The humans in Outland are still driven by greed and slimy as ever. In theory, I’m open to considering the suggestion that Outland is scarier than Alien because of what the film suggests concerning the human spirit: Space will not change us.
MPAA Rating: R.
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