The story of Space Cowboys begins back in 1957 when each of our Armed Services had its own space exploration program. One of the reasons that the Russians beat the USA into space was that selfsame rivalry. The Eisenhower Administration sought to correct the problem by establishing the National Aeronautic and Space Administration and in fact it was future president Lyndon Johnson who pushed the bill through Congress. It's the reason why the Houston mission control center is named after him and why it's located in Texas.

Our four would be astronauts which include pilot Tommy Lee Jones, navigator James Garner, and scientists Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland get done out of that trip to space because of those politics and some internal ones. But something goes radically wrong and 43 years later they're needed in one big emergency.

One of the oldest of Soviet satellites is in orbital decay and the Russians are practically begging our help to get it down. It seems it has a guidance system so old that the current crop of NASA whiz kids just don't know what to do with it. Reluctantly NASA administrator James Cromwell asks for the help of the former Team Daedelus from the Air Force.

Cromwell's got good reason to be concerned and Eastwood's help is especially needed for reasons that will become clear when you watch the film. Let's just say that the satellite is a bit more important than we're originally led to believe.

The senior citizen astronauts show the young ones that they still have the right stuff. The team doesn't always function smoothly though because Tommy Lee Jones is still one reckless dude. But Tommy of all of them comes through in the clinch.

Marcia Gay Harden as a NASA scientist and Barbara Babcock as Mrs. Eastwood contribute some nice performances in a mostly testosterone venture. My favorite though is William Devane, a tough but very fair minded NASA operations head who runs interference for the senior citizens a couple of times with Cromwell.

Space Cowboys got an Oscar nomination for Sound, it might have deserved one or two more. It's great entertainment and that last half hour dealing with the orbitally decaying Russian satellite is very well done in the Special Effects department.

It was like watching a real NASA mission.

SPACE COWBOYS is an astronaut picture with a simple premise: a quartet of old-timers are sent up into space to repair an old-fashioned satellite whose technology is so obsolete that they are the only ones who know how to fix it. Interest is piqued by the presence of Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and Jim Garner in the cast, and the addition of Eastwood himself as director. How could the film be bad with all that talent behind it?

The answer lies in the script. This is an oddly uninvolving story that's never quite sure what it wants to be. There's plenty of humour and the natural camaraderie between the old-timers works well; it's great to see these guys on the screen again. The attempts at high drama and action don't work so well, however, and there's never a real sense of danger coming from the predicament. The dated CGI effects don't help much either. This is better than GRAVITY, although not by much; somehow Hollywood seem to struggle a bit with making convincing astronaut movies.

What movie with Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones. James Garner, James Cromwell, Donald Sutherland, and Marcia Gay Harden wouldn't be worth a look. This one has it all, but mostly laughs. This Clint Eastwood produced and directed movie is great simply because the cast doesn't appear to take it seriously. They are just having fun. And special effects? They are better here than other movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact.

If you like movies where people are considered outdated or replaceable and prove the experts wrong, then this is the one. I watch it and keep getting reminded about all those COBOL experts who were back making the big bucks just prior to the millennium change.