Outland

Set in a mining station on the moon of Jupiter, 1981's Outland stars Sean Connery as the recently-assigned Marshal William T. O'Niel. With his wife (Kika Markham) and son (Nicholas Barnes) unable to deal with the conditions of his job any longer, and leaving for Earth, O'Neil finds himself increasingly isolated especially after he begins looking into a series of suspicious deaths and uncovers a company-approved amphetamine smuggling operation increasing the productivity of the miners but also making a number of the workers insane.

Finding no help among his deputies, with his only supporter being the station's equally gruff doctor (Frances Sternhagen), O'Neil decides to stand against the station's General Manager (Peter Boyle) who, after talking to his superiors, enlists the help of hitmen to get rid of their problematic marshal. Definitely a slow burn, perhaps too slow for some modern viewers, Outland nevertheless does deliver for viewers willing to stick around to see how everything plays out.

The first-half of the film is set aside to introduce the characters, setting, and weave O'Neil through the mystery. After confronting Sheppard (Boyle), the second-half of the film becomes a High Noon-style tension-filled waiting game as O'Neil makes preparations waiting for the baddies to arrive leading to the climactic shoot-out.

The technology of the station may look a bit quaint by today's standards, but having the setting be a station deep in space with limited resources does allow for a certain suspension of disbelief. Making use of miniatures and a front-projection process called Introvision, the film physically holds up delivering a look of the station, both inside and out, that does indeed put us in another world. Outland isn't a film I return to often, far less than High Noon to which it will always be compared, but the film never disappoints.

Although writer/director Peter Hyams' (Timecop, A Sound of Thunder) space-western barely earned back it's initial budget, it was far from the hit the studio was hoping for while also receiving a mixed response from critics. The film has been released several times over the years on home video. The new 4K includes a new restoration of the film and remastered audio, audio commentary by film critic Chris Alexander, and a set of new featurettes and interviews on the making of the film and its legacy.

• Title: Outland
• IMDb: link