Outland (film)
| Outland | |
|---|---|
Original film poster
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| Directed by | Peter Hyams |
| Produced by | Richard A. Roth Stanley O'Toole |
| Written by | Peter Hyams |
| Starring |
Sean Connery Peter Boyle Frances Sternhagen James B. Sikking Kika Markham |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Stephen Goldblatt |
| Edited by | Stuart Baird |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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22 May 1981 (U.S.) |
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Running time
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109 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $16,000,000 (estimated) |
| Box office |
$17,374,595 (U.S.) or $20,000,000 (U.S.) |
Outland is a 1981 British science fiction thriller film written and directed by Peter Hyams. The film stars Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, and Frances Sternhagen.
Set on Jupiter's moon Io, it has been described as a space Western, and bears thematic resemblances to the 1952 film High Noon.
In the future, Federal Marshal William O'Niel (Sean Connery) is assigned to a tour of duty at the titanium ore mining outpost Con-Am 27, operated by the company Conglomerates Amalgamated on the Jovian moon of Io. Conditions on Io are difficult: gravity is 1/6 that of Earth's with no breathable atmosphere, spacesuits are cumbersome and miners carry their own air supply. Shifts are long but significant bonuses are paid. The general manager, Mark Sheppard (Peter Boyle), boasts that productivity has broken all records since he took over.
O'Niel's wife Carol (Kika Markham) feels she cannot raise their son Paul on Io, fleeing with the child to the Jupiter space station to await a shuttle back to Earth. Later, a miner named Tarlow (John Ratzenberger) suffers an attack of stimulant psychosis: he sees spiders and rips open his spacesuit, resulting in his death by explosive decompression. Cane, another miner, enters an elevator without his spacesuit during another psychotic episode and dies from decompression. With the reluctant assistance of Dr. Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen), O'Niel investigates the deaths.
Another incident involves a worker, Sagan, who takes a prostitute hostage and threatens to kill her with a knife. O'Niel attempts to calm the man while Montone (James B. Sikking), his sergeant, sneaks in via the air duct and kills Sagan with a shotgun. O'Niel and Lazarus discover that Sagan had traces of a powerful amphetamine-type drug in his bloodstream, which would allow the miners to work continuously for days at a time, until they "burn out" and turn psychotic after approximately ten months of use. O'Niel uncovers a drug distribution ring run by a corrupt Sheppard and sanctioned by Montone.
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Wikipedia