Atmosperic and classy with the great screen presence of Sean Connery this movie suffers from one severe flaw: an utterly uninspiring script.
O'Niel (Sean Connery) is the new sheriff in a outland space mining colony renowned for its high efficiency and great production return. He is a new entity in this demoralised place, where money, sex and power rule over common decency. After all the workers need to let loose and go crazy once in a while, since all the hard work they do millions of kilometres from home. Life isn't easy here in space and even O'Niel's wife decides she can no longer continue living so far away from home and leaves with their son to return to Earth (a place which their boy has only read about in books).
Depressed from the turn of events O'Niel only strengthens his resolve to do what is right and keep some semblance of justice on the colony. Hence when it occurs to the sheriff that this outer space town suffers from inexplicably high suicide levels he decides to resolve the mystery and will resort to any means necessary to solve this case.
Gloomy, gritty and surprisingly realistic (i.e. heads blowing up after decompression) starts off very promisingly acting out as a mystery crime story in outer space with some admirable noire qualities. All this quickly comes to pass, as the mystery is solved within the first 30 minutes of the movie and from then on we receive a hack-job script which some illogical action sequences (not much logic to them actually taking place), poor character motivations and stereotypical plot solutions. In the end you just really feel wanting for much more, as the movie never supplies what it promises.
Essentially this could have been a classic sci-fi story, but the writers just got it all wrong. But the credits of the movie you really have no idea whether it has or has not ended. It never acts out to anything resembling ending and you finish the story asking yourself "So what exactly did this mean for the colony and what was the point of O'Niel staying to participate in a blood-bath?" The movie ages nicely and special effects are quite impressive. But with a story like this it won't ever become a classic.
O'Niel (Sean Connery) is the new sheriff in a outland space mining colony renowned for its high efficiency and great production return. He is a new entity in this demoralised place, where money, sex and power rule over common decency. After all the workers need to let loose and go crazy once in a while, since all the hard work they do millions of kilometres from home. Life isn't easy here in space and even O'Niel's wife decides she can no longer continue living so far away from home and leaves with their son to return to Earth (a place which their boy has only read about in books).
Depressed from the turn of events O'Niel only strengthens his resolve to do what is right and keep some semblance of justice on the colony. Hence when it occurs to the sheriff that this outer space town suffers from inexplicably high suicide levels he decides to resolve the mystery and will resort to any means necessary to solve this case.
Gloomy, gritty and surprisingly realistic (i.e. heads blowing up after decompression) starts off very promisingly acting out as a mystery crime story in outer space with some admirable noire qualities. All this quickly comes to pass, as the mystery is solved within the first 30 minutes of the movie and from then on we receive a hack-job script which some illogical action sequences (not much logic to them actually taking place), poor character motivations and stereotypical plot solutions. In the end you just really feel wanting for much more, as the movie never supplies what it promises.
Essentially this could have been a classic sci-fi story, but the writers just got it all wrong. But the credits of the movie you really have no idea whether it has or has not ended. It never acts out to anything resembling ending and you finish the story asking yourself "So what exactly did this mean for the colony and what was the point of O'Niel staying to participate in a blood-bath?" The movie ages nicely and special effects are quite impressive. But with a story like this it won't ever become a classic.