Film Review: The Right Stuff (1983) B-

Date Viewed: 2/1/08
Venue: HDNet

Test pilots are the center of 1983's The Right Stuff, director Phillip Kaufman's lengthy exploration of the origins of America's space program. The film follows the professional and private lives of the seven men (and the legendary Chuck Yeager to boot) who were chosen to be America's first astronauts.

The film begins with Yeager (Sam Shepherd) breaking the sound barrier over the Mojave Desert. A few years later, the Soviets initiate the space race with the launch of Sputnik, and Washington sends recruiters (Harry Shearer and a young Jeff Goldblum) to the desert in search of future astronauts.

After rejecting Yeager (Washington was only interested in 'college-educated' pilots), the recruiters snag Air Force pilots Gus Grisson (a grizzly Fred Ward) and cocky Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid) to join clean-cut John Glen (Ed Harris) and joker Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), among others.

The men find themselves poked, prodded, and studied extensively (and ushered around by poorly-dubbed orderly Anthony Munoz of NFL and disgusting sports injury fame) before the final seven are chosen and eventually, one-by-one, launched into space.

This is a sprawling, ambitious film that drips director Kaufman's love of the material, but the narrative is staggeringly off-balance. By dividing our time between our pilots, Yeager's continuing non-space-related flights, and some Washington behind-the-scenes machinations, we never settle on whose story this is supposed to be.

Despite having nothing to do with the space program, our scenes with Yeager's ongoing exploits in breaking speed and altitude records are the thematic heart of the film, expressing the test pilot obsession with pushing the envelope (and hinting at the notion that he was really the pilot with 'the right stuff'). And the Washington scenes would be fine if this were a more straightforward look at the history of our space program. But by trying to balance all three, we don't get a lot of depth with the pilots, the Washington bits feel rushed, and Yeager feels extraneous. There are also several instances of characters saying they're going to do something in lieu of actually seeing them do something, further evidence of extreme story compression.

Even with the overstuffed (even for a three-hour plus runtime) narrative, there are things to enjoy. Ed Harris and Fred Ward are great, and the pilots stories are very honest overall, not shying away from some of their skirt-chasing, chest-thumping, uber-macho ways. The spaceflight scenes themselves are well done, with appropriate weight and drama.

The Right Stuff is a frustrating mess of a movie. I respect the stories represented and the efforts of the filmakers, but there is strength in simplicity, and I wish further effort had been made to streamline the story and keep the audience involved.