It's a pleasure alright, and I don't feel guilty about it at all!.

A NASA space mission up to Mars fails to get off the ground due to major technical problems. Fearing funding could be taken away and wishing to avoid embarrassment, the powers that be decide to do a fake landing in a studio. With the astronauts forced to pretend that they are actually up on Mars, and fighting with their own personal belief systems, the government executives in charge fear that the fake flight could come to light. Upon learning that the outside world actually thinks they crashed upon reentering the earths atmosphere, the astronauts run for their lives knowing that the government can't afford for the men to stay alive.

Capricorn One is an excellent conspiracy picture that sadly seems to have been largely forgotten. Even today we are still hearing mooted stories of the landing on the moon actually being fake, so here director and writer Peter Hyams takes it and crafts a thrillingly taut piece of work. At the films heart is Elliot Gould's (his great 70s work under valued) intrepid journalist, Robert Caulfield, after being nudged in the ribs by one of his friends at NASA, is himself under threat of death from shadowy government types who will think of nothing to offing him along with the astronauts.

The film is split into two very significant halves, the first half is the set up, the conversations before and after the fake landing are clever and crucially attention grabbing, and of course we get to know our characters with the right amount of time. The film then shifts for the second half into a quality thriller chase movie, our main protagonists pursued by the government assassins courtesy of two gun toting helicopters. Jerry Goldsmith's score brilliantly becoming part of the chase sequences, making the helicopters seem like death stalking machines operated by no man alone. We even get Telly Savalas joining us for the last quarter with a highly fun and enjoyable portrayal as a crop dusting knight in red shiny armour, and the finale positively rocks and finishes the film on the high note it promised all along. James Brolin, Brenda Vaccaro, Sam Waterston, O.J. Simpson, Hal Holbrook and Karen Black fill out the rest of the cast with much credit indeed.

Capricorn One, criminally undervalued, and perhaps even more sad, forgotten. 8/10

I wished I had seen "Capricorn One" before watching "Hangar 18". I think I would have like it more. The Mars landing conspiracy of "Capricorn One" paled in comparison to the hidden UFO cover-up of "Hangar 18". Regardless, I do think that "Capricorn One" is a better movie.

First off, it's got a great, late-70's cast. Hal Holbrook and Elliot Gould are the two main characters and are the strongest. I normally don't like the smarmy Gould, but the character he plays fits him perfectly. I'd also forgotten how well Holbrook plays a bad guy. He was certainly someone you loved to hate, and the dislike for him grows as the astronauts are tossed aside as sacrificial lambs for NASA. My two favorite bit players were Karen Black and David Doyle. Neither of them are in the movie much, but Karen Black is really sexy and Doyle is great as Caulfield's (Gould) boss. Telly Savalas is also funny as the cranky pilot of a cropduster.

The conspiracy runs deep in this one and the peril of the astronauts is affecting even though their struggles really slow down the movie at times. This also features an unexpected gross-out moment when Brubaker (James Brolin) eats a raw rattlesnake. Sam Waterston is a fun sidekick to Brolin's character but O.J. Simpson is a waste of a role. Someone, anyone, could have done better. His part is unnecessary and he's a bad actor.

The Jerry Goldsmith score was really good and I loved the opening where we slowly fade from black into the rocket on the launch pad.

I imagined what it must have been like for those astronauts to be pulled from the capsule just 10 minutes or so before launch. The explanation that Holbrook gives about hiring a cheap contractor who doesn't deliver a quality project is certainly not far-fetched. It is a little severe though, to try to hide an unsuccessful, over budget project to this level. The NASA of this movie is one messed up program.

Now to the ending, which without a doubt shows that the conspiracy will end up being nothing of the sort. There is no question that NASA, the President, Vice President, Senator, all of them, will be rejected by the American people. But the way that Hyams concludes things with Brubaker and Caulfield running, in slow motion, towards Brubaker's own funeral, is disappointing. It's great that everyone in the funeral sees them and that we see the looks of disbelief on their faces. It's also hinted that we know the American people are seeing that Brubaker is actually alive on live TV because the Network cameras turn toward him. But the fact that the movie ends, freeze-framed on Brubaker and Gould. It's a bummer because a cover-up of this size really demands more scenes of reaction. I normally like endings left open to interpretation, but not in the case of this movie. The "bad guys" were so bad, that I wanted to see them be punished.