NASA launches Capricorn One into space on its way to Mars. The space program is under financial stress and the President can't even bother to show up for the launch. The astronauts Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Peter Willis (Sam Waterston) and John Walker (O. J. Simpson) are surprised to be secreted away. Director Dr. James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) tells them that the life support system was found fatally flawed. Instead of scrubbing the mission, Kelloway pressures them to fake the Martian landing. Few people would be involved in the cover up. A technician discovers the conspiracy but then he disappears which alarms his investigative journalist friend Robert Caulfield (Elliott Gould).
It's an interesting premise for the paranoid conspiracy era. The story has great potential. I prefer staying more with the astronauts and the reporter. I don't think most of the scenes at the control room are that compelling. The movie feels a little scattered until the plane helicopters chase. That is a great sequence. It is a thrilling stunt and amazingly shot.
It's an interesting premise for the paranoid conspiracy era. The story has great potential. I prefer staying more with the astronauts and the reporter. I don't think most of the scenes at the control room are that compelling. The movie feels a little scattered until the plane helicopters chase. That is a great sequence. It is a thrilling stunt and amazingly shot.