Or, I made the mistake of seeing The Farmer Astronaut tonight. Ye gods! It’s a stinker! The friend I saw it with thought that it was a light, frothy, souffle (which is what I’d hoped it would be), while I thought it was pond scum. I should point out that he agrees with most of my complaints with the film, and, for the most part, I’m not going to bother with the science stuff they got wrong. (I’m a space geek, I don’t expect everyone else to be a space geek, so I’m willing to cut the film a lot of slack in that department.)
This film has absolutely no idea what it wants to be. It flips between taking itself (all too) seriously and slightly tongue-in-cheek. Had they picked one or the other, it could have worked. Had they modeled it after Tucker: The Man and His Dream, it could have worked (My buddy said, “It’s no Tucker, that’s for sure.”). Instead, we get, well, shit on a shingle, for lack of a better description.
Billy Bob Thorton plays a guy who’s last name is “Farmer” (I think his character’s first name was Charlie, but with even his wife calling him “Farmer” 99% of the time, it’s hard to know for sure.) and he’s obsessed with going into space, sort of. See, based on the photographs we see of him, he apparently was part of the X-15 program (which was concurrent with Mercury and Gemini programs in the 1960s), though the film is set in the present day (which would make his character in his 70s or so).
For reasons never adequately explained, his chances at being an astronaut were killed when he left the military after his father committed suicide. Armed with only a disk grinder, a Mac tool box, a barn, and an oxy-acetelyne torch, he builds himself an Atlas rocket with a Mercury capsule on top of it.
He winds up being investigated by the FBI (and the 2 agents sent to keep an eye on him are both Jason Lee wannabes) because he tries to buy something like 10K lbs of black powder. (For a design that was originally liquid fueled?) Even though he’s filed all the proper paperwork with the FAA, they still think that he might be a terrorist or something (at one point, he winds up having to have a psychiatric examination by the local school nurse). The head of the FAA is eeeeevvvvviiiiiiiillllll, like the EPA guy in Ghostbusters was eeeeeeeeeevvvvvviiiiiiiilllllllll (except that guy was better defined).
Farmer (who likes to go around wearing a surplus Mercury spacesuit) consults his lawyer about what to do. Lawyer says he’s got a buddy in a New York lawfirm who owes him a favor (which is good because the bank’s about to foreclose on Farmer’s ranch) and he’ll call him for advice. The next thing you know, the media’s swarming all over the place and filming both the Farmer family and the FBI agents and the various Cadillacs that they drive.
Farmer hits on the bright idea of allowing the public to get a look at his rocket (and yet he doesn’t think to charge admission to see it, so he misses the chance to make enough money to pay the bank). Farmer, BTW, is aided in his endeavors by his 15 year old son, Shepard (who dresses like he’s in Brokeback Mountain for much of the film), his two daughters who appear to be about 5 and 10, and his wife and her father.
At some point, Bruce Willis shows up. He’s an old friend of Farmer’s and an astronaut/Air Force dude. Willis totally phones in his performance, never once losing the smirk on his face. He’s there to try to talk Farmer out of this, and even goes so far as to offer Farmer a shuttle flight if Farmer gives up the idea. (Why? Because NASA would never allow a private citizen to fly in space. Uh, hello? Does the name Burt Rutan ring any bells? How about the X-Prize?) Farmer, of course, doesn’t agree to this.
When he has his hearing with the FAA commission, for clearance, Bruce Willis is sitting on the FAA board (the meeting, BTW, is held in the local high school gym, rather than the town court room, and nobody from the media or the public is allowed in). Farmer has this rambling speech which might have had a point, if it were modeled after that of Preston Tucker’s in Tucker, but it isn’t, so it doesn’t. The FAA wants to take everything under consideration, and will give their reply in 60 days (the bank will foreclose before then).
The tabloids and everyone in town is milking Farmer’s story for all it’s worth, but he never thinks of selling his story to the media. When his wife reads an article in the paper which implies he’s a nutbag cult leader, Farmer takes the family (and the media that folows their every move) to the local carnival. While there, he agrees to rent a carosel “rocket” ride for $500/week.
Farmer is then watching a NASCAR race with his FIL, when he hits on the idea of selling ad space on his rocket (BTW, the FAA has told Farmer that if he tries to take off before the FAA comes to a decision, the military will blow him out of the sky [Did I mention that Farmer’s property is subject to 24 hours news coverage? Can you imagine the public reaction if the government shot down a private spaceflight attempt? Yeah, that’d go over well.] without hesitation.). Nobody’s willing to buy ad space (Funny, Rutan didn’t have that problem.), since they don’t know if he’s going to make it or not.
Farmer’s FIL dies, they have an Amish-style funeral, and Farmer decides to whip up some kind of improvised alternative rocket fuel (why not use good old kerosene and liquid oxygen?) and launch himself with no advance notice to anyone (including his family, his son was supposed to be running Mission Control).
The rocket does a “pogo,” then falls over and shoots across the countryside, nearly wiping out the press corps (yet strangely leaving the barn intact). Farmer doesn’t think to hit the “abort” button, which would fire the escape rocket and blast the capsule free of the rocket, so he goes along for a Wile E. Coyote-esque ride, until the capsule bounces to a stop.
Amazingly, he survives the crash, but is in a coma (he should have been turned into jello). There’s less than a week before the bank forecloses on the ranch, but Farmer’s FIL willed enough money to them that they can afford to get current with the bank. When Farmer’s wife pays the bank (BTW, the entire media circus has pretty much packed up and left at this point.), the loan officer laughs at the thought of Farmer ever going into space. The wife get’s her dander up about this.
Farmer comes out of his coma, says, “I’m agonna give up on goin’ ta space.” and the FAA does a snooty press conference about how folks like Farmer should “leave spaceflight to the ‘professionals’ at NASA.” Wife gives Farmer a grocery bag full of cash and says he needs to rebuild his rocket.
At this point, you really need to start singing, “If you want to show the passage of time, you need a montage.” since that’s exactly what happens. Farmer does a bunch of “training” routines and then, decides to launch his rocket. The FBI guys are tipped off that Farmer has bought a bunch of rocket fuel (Can you get that at your local Exxon station?) so they chase after “him.” (It turns out to be the illegal immigrant farmhand playing decoy.)
Farmer blasts off, and surprisingly, even though Mission Control only has access to the satellite antennas mounted on the roof of the Airstream trailer, which is next to the house, no matter where Farmer goes in orbit, they can talk to him. The FAA denies that a launch took place (there’s a whole subplot of sexual innuendo with the rocket that I’m ignoring). Amusingly enough, whatever military operation center that Bruce Willis is working in when the rocket goes up breaks into applause at the success of the launch.
While in orbit, things go slightly wrong with the capsule, and Farmer winds up doing more orbits than he planned. Mind you, the few weightless effects we see are utter crap. The one’s in The Black Hole were better and they were done 2 decades ago. Eventually, he figures out that it’s his CGI’d wedding ring that caused the problem, and he’s able to deorbit and come to a landing in the desert. (Uh, the Mercury capsules were designed to land on water.) The End.
Blech. The highlight of the film, IMHO, is when Farmer and his wife are sitting at the dinner table arguing over money, while the youngest daughter sucks on a carrot. The camera keeps lingering on her sucking on the carrot. This, of course, isn’t funny. What was funny was that my friend and I both looked at one another and said, “You know, you can make daddy a lot of money doing that.” (Yeah, I know, pedophilia isn’t funny, but WTF was the point of showng the daughter sucking on the carrot for like 5 minutes?)
