Set far in the future, Sean Connery plays a marshal who has been transferred to a mining colony on one of Jupiter's moons—a dingy, depressing place akin to a company town where people work with the hopes of eventually escaping.
Drugs and corruption abound and people do their jobs and cope with the boredom as best they can. Things appear to be going smoothly until a drug going around starts making people think they can walk in space without a suit.
Connery investigates with little help from his department or the general population, as they are paid to look the other way or are too scared to get involved. Despite warnings from the company man in charge (played wonderfully by Peter Boyle) Connery pursues the case.
I use Connery's name (rather than his character's) on purpose as this felt like an obvious vehicle for him. I felt like the studio simply did this to make a tense, space-themed crime movie with an action star after the success of Alien. All things considered, this could have turned out a lot worse.
It has its moments of effective tension, but they are offset with other attempts that just don't work. There's a ridiculous foot chase through the facility that ends with a less than convincing fight. Then there's the almost Western-style showdown against company-hired thugs. The sets are crude and the models are obvious. So are the stunts. The movie fails to be convincing on several levels. This movie did not age well, either.
At the time of writing this, there appears to be a remake in the works with the same writer/director involved (Peter Hyams). I wouldn't mind seeing an updated version of this at all. I'm sure they could do a much better job of it now.
Drugs and corruption abound and people do their jobs and cope with the boredom as best they can. Things appear to be going smoothly until a drug going around starts making people think they can walk in space without a suit.
Connery investigates with little help from his department or the general population, as they are paid to look the other way or are too scared to get involved. Despite warnings from the company man in charge (played wonderfully by Peter Boyle) Connery pursues the case.
I use Connery's name (rather than his character's) on purpose as this felt like an obvious vehicle for him. I felt like the studio simply did this to make a tense, space-themed crime movie with an action star after the success of Alien. All things considered, this could have turned out a lot worse.
It has its moments of effective tension, but they are offset with other attempts that just don't work. There's a ridiculous foot chase through the facility that ends with a less than convincing fight. Then there's the almost Western-style showdown against company-hired thugs. The sets are crude and the models are obvious. So are the stunts. The movie fails to be convincing on several levels. This movie did not age well, either.
At the time of writing this, there appears to be a remake in the works with the same writer/director involved (Peter Hyams). I wouldn't mind seeing an updated version of this at all. I'm sure they could do a much better job of it now.