OUTLAND (WB, 1981) D: Peter Hyams, w/ Sean Connery, Frances Sternhagen. Rating: NN Blu-ray package: NNN Rating: NN
Until the hired killers show up (about 70 minutes in), Outland is a handsome but dull crime story. Director Peter Hyams knows how to make a spectacle of his mining colony on one of Jupiter’s moons and impose a shadowy noir claustrophobia to its large-scale interiors. But the colony never comes to life. The extras have nothing distinctive to do and the principals come off as colourless stock characters in a formulaic tale about a brand-new marshal hunting down the dope dealers behind the sudden surge of miners going lethally psycho.
Sean Connery, the marshal, Frances Sternhagen, his buddy, and Peter Boyle, the plant manager are vibrant actors, but their dialogue clangs and none of them seems fully engaged.
Things pick up considerably once hero and villains begin stalking each other through the colony.
Hyams provides a thoughtful making-of commentary.
EXTRAS Director commentary. English, French, Spanish audio and subtitles.
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