Try once. Then fail. Then try again. Succeed. Basically, don’t give up and you might eventually bask in the long-deserved applause.
This is the moral you’ll likely get from “The Astronaut Farmer,” directed by Michael Polish, which comes to theaters nationwide this weekend.
The premise behind the film is a bit odd, yet it’s believable enough to keep the film from falling into a horrible oblivion. Texas farmer Charlie Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) is the smartest cat in town. Equipped with a genuine college education, he has assembled his own rocket to the stars in his barn, making him the king of his self-made Cape Canaveral.
But things don’t go as smoothly for Farmer’s “we choose to go to the moon” Kennedy-esque ambitions. The “evil government men,” who in a way kept reminding me of the anonymous bureaucratic evildoers that ruined little E.T. in that great Spielberg film, catch note of Farmer’s plans and threaten him with empty rhetoric on his possible dangers to national security should he launch his rocket.
Will Farmer achieve his goal of making his own self-made voyage into outer space without the legions of NASA scientist help?
Such is the basic question and the basic plot of the film.
Had this film been cast with a different leading role for feel-good family man Charlie Farmer, I wouldn’t have been so perturbed the entire time. But with Thornton playing a man who’s good to his kids, lacking a foul mouth and not continually smashed, something didn’t quite click.
I kept thinking of the drunken Thornton of “Bad Santa.” I kept seeing the cussing Thornton as the political aide in “Primary Colors.” I kept imagining the Thornton who downs beers in a fashion that keeps up with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson.
Thornton was badly cast for this role, a move that hurt the feel of the film. Thornton doesn’t play the nice guy very well. Instead, he plays the trashy dude we love to watch like movies like “Bad Santa.” He does try hard, though, but when he gets the chance to add a four-letter word to this otherwise PG film, the real Thornton comes out.
Another oddball in the cast was the seemingly random addition of Bruce Willis, who plays a supportive friend of Farmer’s. His constant smirk seemed out of place in this family-oriented film and better suited for his action roles like in “Sin City.”
Fortunately, the rest of the cast is well-chosen and fitting for the film.
Because of those two oddball choices, and the often thematically unfulfilling storyline, I have to give the movie a “C+.” Had the lead role for the film been better cast, the main character’s plight to reach space might have been more convincing. His conflicts with his family, the town and his governmental enemies just didn’t reach this reviewer’s interest.
The good points of the film, however, were its brief allusions to the original moon landing, a light score reminiscent of James Horner’s work for “Apollo 13,” simple humor and “Rudy”-like feel-good nature. But don’t expect to feel too good after watching it.
