Stealth Entertainment: The Astronaut Farmer
By Scott Lumley
October 9, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.
Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.
The Astronaut Farmer (2006)
Ah, here we go. As I've stated numerous times, the reason I write this column is to take a closer look at movies that have come and gone and left very little in the way of impact. The Astronaut farmer is a perfect example of a film that fits this demographic. It was released in 2006 and it grossed $11 million from a $13 million budget. In Hollywood terms, that's an ouch. Low budget films should really have a better shot at showing profit, but this one came up just short. Realistically, this film has probably turned a profit of some sort with DVD sales and licensing to aftermarket by now, but that money never gets figured into the final tally.
The film itself is loaded with an eclectic cast. The only really big names are Billy Bob Thornton as Charles Farmer, Virginia Madsen as Audrey Farmer, Bruce Willis in a cameo role as Colonel Doug Masterson and Bruce Dern as Audrey's dad Hal. And two of those four names ceased to be big names some time ago. The rest of the movie is littered with character actors who you will rack your brain trying to place. J.K. Simmons, Tim Blake Nelson, John Gries and Elise Eberle all have small but important roles in the film. Well, most of them have important roles. Eberle is cast as a waitress in the restaurant Audrey works in and seems relegated to rolling her eyes and giving disapproving looks at people.
The entire film is based around the premise that Charles Thornton had joined the Air Force and eventually NASA with the intent of being an astronaut. A family tragedy on the eve of his launch forced him to drop out of the program, however, an event that haunts Charles to this day. Naturally, like any normal American with a degree in Astrophysics, he decides to build an Atlas rocket in his barn so that he can launch from his backyard, perform an orbit around Earth, then parachute into his own backyard in time for dinner.
I'm not kidding, that's his actual plan. The title isn't a clever play on words, there is an actual Atlas rocket in this character's barn. The only things holding him back from launching are the $600,000 in debt that he has accrued, the impending foreclosure of his family farm where he stores the rocket and a complete lack of fuel to power the rocket into orbit.
Naturally, when Farmer attempts to procure the fuel, a lot of government agencies become very interested in Charles and his family. The FBI descends on the farm in military formation and starts tearing things up while threatening and intimidating the family. NASA and the FAC stick their nose in as well, threatening Farmer with severe fines and prison time if he even tries to launch. At one point, Farmer is told that if he does, he'll be blown out of the sky by the military.
It's a bit depressing, actually. America. Home of the free, unless you try and step away from the herd and do something amazing, at which point you are threatened with massive fines and jail time.
I'm a little uncertain if the writers of this film, (Mark and Michael Polish) went overboard a bit with this. There are liberal references to the patriot act and claims of national security, and the excitement that Farmer starts to generate in the first act gets overwhelmed by a sense of dread as it starts to strongly appear that this rocket might never leave the ground and the whole family might fall apart under the pressure. Just when it seems about as bleak as it could possibly be, Audrey gets a visit from a vague children's services official who informs Audrey that she has information that her husband has started some sort of cult and she needs to take control of her family back before someone else does.
That's a heavy threat for anyone, but I doubt that Children's services officials can just walk into a restaurant, shanghai a family member and make that kind of a threat without at least performing an investigation first.
At any rate, the movie continues along, adding pressure after pressure to the Farmer factory until in what was a surprise to me, Farmer snaps and does something drastic that ends up going horribly awry. The film shifts tonally at that point, and it becomes more about Farmer's broken spirit at that point.
The most disappointing aspect to this film really seemed to be Billy Bob Thornton, who seems to sleepwalk through this role as the space obsessed Farmer. It seems odd watching him cast in this role. He's playing a gifted intellectual man who works as a farmer and has a virtually perfect family. Yet he's dragging his family into financial ruin by chasing his rocket dreams. He's likable enough in the role, yet he never really stands out that much. It seems like any major B list Hollywood actor could have stepped in and played the same part.
Virginia Madsen does a much better job as his wife Audrey, who works as a waitress by day and Mission Control at night. She has the job of grabbing Farmer by the ankles and grounding him as he dreams of launching himself into orbit at the cost of his family's home and livelihood. She's alternately protective, supportive, angry, embarrassed and proud at different times during the film, but unlike Thornton, she doesn't seem like she's forcing it.
The best acting jobs in the entire film, however, are given by the Bruces, Dern and Willis. Dern does an outstanding job playing Audrey's father. He's a scraggly, gentle old man who is amazed by his son-in-law and what he's accomplished, but he's rooted enough in the real world to ask his daughter, "What happens if he doesn't launch?" And he doesn't ask it in a mean or cruel way, either, he really just wants to know where to be if the dream falls apart so he can help. The characters in the film all love him and it's hard not to the way Dern plays this quiet and unassuming character.
Bruce Willis plays a radically different character from Dern, as he is cast as Colonel Doug Masterson, a former astronaut very familiar with Farmer and his career. He's deeply impressed by Farmer's rocket but he's also painfully aware of what is imminent for Farmer and his family and he makes every effort to offer Thornton an easy out. The conversation that Farmer and Masterson have in the mission control trailer is surprisingly compelling and you can see that Masterson isn't looking to strip Farmer of his dream, he just wants to protect Farmer and his family. It's the kind of conversation that only friends that really care about each other ever have because if anyone else ever tried it would most likely result in a punch in the mouth.
Looking back on this movie, I can honestly say I enjoyed it. There's little swearing, no sex and no violence yet it was a movie I watched from start to finish without a complaint. Thornton underwhelmed me a bit with his acting, but Madsen, Willis and Dern more than compensated for that. The script is a little heavy handed, and there's a clear Deus Ex Machina about two thirds of the way through the movie that aggravated me to no end, but it was an entertaining family movie, and those are rather rare nowadays.
This isn't a film that I would put into my collection, but if you have little ones and want to put something a bit inspiring into the DVD player, this is a good film to reach for.