OCTOBER SKY (1999)
Rating: 8.5/10 Stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper & Laura Dern Directed by Joe Johnston
October Sky is a highly entertaining film, a mix in equal parts of Stand By Me, Iron Will & The Right Stuff. Based on the memoir of NASA scientist Homer Hickam, this feel-good film tells the true story of four West Virginia coal town boys fascinated by the October, 1957 flight of Sputnik.
Dreaming of scholarships and a life after high school not involving decades of heavy labor in the mines, the four friends set about learning the fledgling field of rocketry on their own. Despite an inauspiscious beginning (they blow up the Hickam's white picket fence), the boys keep at it, learning a little more with each successive failure. In a scene highly reminescent of The Right Stuff, we're treated to an increasingly hysterical montage of exploding rockets. Equally amusing is the scene in which the four raise cash to fund their experiments, borrowing parts from a closed-off section of railroad and selling them off as scrap metal.
All this fascination with outer space nonsense eventually leads to trouble with Hickam's down-to-earth mine foreman father, expertly played by Chris Cooper (perhaps best known as the sheriff in John Sayles' Lone Star). Hickam, Sr. is strict, but fair in his own way; it is to Cooper's credit that this portrayal doesn't come off as the typical one-note father who just doesn't get it.
With this father-son friction providing the dramatic tension through the film's mid-section, the boys continue their quest for a rocket that will work, alternately aided & hindered by sympathetic mine workers (notably a far under-used Ilya Baskin), a strike that threatens to shut down the entire town, a science teacher with a problem (Dern), & accusations of starting a forest fire with one of their wayward rockets. Reality ultimately intrudes on their dream, when Homer's dad is injured in a mine mishap, & Homer has to give up both school and rocketry to support the family by working in the mines. Though his spirit may be down, his mind is not, ultimately leading him to a realization that gets him out of the mine and back to the rockets.
The events that follow -- including a trip to Indianapolis for a national science fair -- are a bit telegraphed, but by then you're willing to forgive the film just about any faults. Director Joe Johnston proves here that he doesn't need heavy FX to tell a good story. After the visual excesses of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer & Jumanji, this must have felt like a vacation.
It feels like one for the audience as well. October Sky is the kind of inspiring, triumphant film that Hollywood regrettably just doesn't make anymore. Kudos to Universal for seeing it through to the screen.
October Sky, based on the book Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam, opens nationwide on February 19th. Running time is 1:40, with a PG rating for mild violence and language.
Tom
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