Best movie of this year hands down!

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

America is desperate to get to the moon but the Apollo rocket is not ready yet. The Russians are set to send a team to the moon. In order to beat them, the Americans deploy a risky scheme for one man to fly the modified Gemini craft on an one-way trip to the moon. There he must locate a previously landed shelter and wait for the return trip when the Apollo rocket is ready. The Russian team consists of civilians and the White House insists on putting up a civilian of their own. Team leader Chiz (Robert Duvall) is passed over due to his Air Force credentials and Lee Stegler (James Caan) is rushed into training.There is a tension-filled space drama lurking here somewhere but director Robert Altman is unable inject any intensity. It's his first big budget theatrical movie. He does have some great actors giving some interesting performances. I am struck by Lee blowing up at his wife for lying to her about the risks. It seems like Altman may be more comfortable with the human conflict. He has nothing in terms of thrills or action or excitement. This is probably a wrong fit for him. The movie also ends before the adventure truly ends. The mission is not finished as far as I'm concerned. This is a partly movie and not the good part.

Mostly good, solid, well acted (especially by Robert Duvall and James Caan) story of behind the scenes politics among astronauts as we raced Russia towards the moon in the late 1960s. Gets a little soapy at times, some of the politics and science seem a little cheated, and key incidents are convenient and co-incidental. Production values, especially the special effects, are pretty weak. And Caan's astronaut is a little too open with his fears to be believed as a man of his position at that moment in history. On the other hand it's impressive that in 1969 someone made a space movie focusing on complex emotions and human behavior, not technology. The climax is a bit 'Hollywood', although at least a little more bittersweet than usual, if predictable (and a cheat). The small roles are well cast and played. Not really recognizably an Altman film, but certainly shows talent and is worth seeing.

**SPOILERS** Made on a shoe-string budget "Countdown" is by far the movie with the best depiction of a flight to the Lunar surface then any of the previous "Flight to the Moon" films going as far back as the early 1900's. The movie went from science fiction to science fact in just under two years after it's release in early 1968 with the historic three manned Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 1969.Trying to become the first nation to put a man on the Moon the US has NASA set a mission to the Lunar surface to beat the USSR. It's supposed to be done with the astronaut sated for that historic mission to be a civilian. Air Force fighter pilot Chiz Stewart, Robert Duvall,who was hoping to be chosen for the Moon Mission is terribly upset by being eliminated because of his military background. Stewart become very hostile towards his friend Lee Stegler, James Caan, a civilian worker for NASA for getting picked for the flight christened, or designated by NASA, Pilgrim One.Taking out his frustrations on Lee Chiz, who's in charge of training for the Moon Mission, does everything he can to have him wash out of the program. Not just because of sour grapes but because Chiz like Lee's wife Mckey, Joanna Cook Moore,feel that he's doesn't have the experience as an astronaut to handle this very dangerous assignment. On top of that Lee, being the egomaniac that he is, will end up getting himself killed on the mission because of his obsession the be the first man on the moon even if it kills him.Just days before Lee is to blast off there's news from the Soviet Union that the Russians sent a three man crew into obit and that it would land on the Moon before the USA planned Moon shot. That still doesn't have Pilgrim One suspended with those at NASA feeling that the news may very well be a rumor. To keep them form launching the Moon Mission, by the sneaky and conniving Soviets.Sent into space the next morning from Cape Kennedy in Florida Pilgrim One has major problems as it goes into the Moons trajectory because of a power loss during the take-off. With Chiz, at the controls at the NASA Space Center in Huston, walking Lee through the dangerous complexities of the space mission he makes it to within 200 miles from the surface of the Moon.On the Moon NASA had two weeks earlier landed and unmanned space shelter with a rotating red beacon that Lee is to first identify and then to land, as close as possible, next to it. At the shelter there's enough air water and food to last two months. It's then when NASA would send an Apollo manned space capsule to pick up Lee and bring him back safely home to earth.It turned out that Chiz and Mickey's worse fears were realized with Lee not wanting to have the mission aborted and sent back to earth, without being the first man on the Moon, taking his chances in landing Pilgrim One despite not really knowing if it was withing site of the NASA shelter. Which, with only two hours of air in his space suit, was almost curtain death for him. Walking through the unknown wilderness that's the Lunar surface Lee discovers that the USSR indeed landed a manned space mission on the Moon before the USA. Lee also finds out that the three man crew were killed as it crashed, instead of landed, on impact.With the air in his space suit almost exhausted Lee looking at his watch, which told him that he had only seven minutes of oxygen left, notices a bilking red flash reflecting off the glass back at him! Looking straight ahead Lee sees the NASA space shelter, which was Lee's only chance of surviving, with it's red rotating identification lamp guiding him straight to it.

This film is not particularly noteworthy in itself, but as a benchmark in the development of science-fiction on the big screen. It marks one of the last gasps of the low-budget, hardware-driven (Rockets and Rayguns, if you like) school of sci-fi and falls well short of its contemporary "Marooned", much less merit any comparison with "2001" and other later high concept films. Altman's direction is sufficient to keep the picture moving along and the overlapping dialogue is a refreshingly sophisticated stuff. The ego clashes of the two pilot candidates for the moon flight seems a bit stilted (Duvall seems at home in the role, but Caan's not up to it), the anti-Soviet rhetoric is a bit grating at times and the female roles are essentially throw-aways. When it's time to put together a retrospective on the sci-fi genre (as has been done for war films) this one might get 15 seconds during the moonshot segment; it hardly deserves more. This film's biggest problem was (apparently) budget -- it's rare to see a film depict the props and procedures of its own era so poorly.