(Flash Review)This 3hr+ movie, which won four Oscars, was about the original Mercury 7 astronauts and how they were cheery-picked from the cream of the crop pilots of the era. This was an exciting time for America and NASA as they kicked of the space program with manned flights and were neck and neck with the Russians in the space race. The movie shows how the nation's interest transitioned from upping the top speed records to launching rockets into space. This sort of felt like a documentary, which was good and bad. Lots of neat training scenes, top end planes and rocket failures to orbiting the Earth. Yet the overall pacing felt choppy and uneven. Key moments were done well, yet not knitted together smoothly. For being nominated for Best Cinematography, I felt it was sub-par. Overall a long and fascinating movie for plane and space fans.

Based upon the book by Tom Wolfe, the subject matter and thematic content is 'a pooch that can't be screwed' in the words of that venerable old ace pilot Chuck Yeager as played by Sam Shepherd. I actually would have preferred seeing John Travolta play Yeager because of the undeniable physical resemblance and Travolta's well documented love of flying, but real life Yeager's cameo in the film is amusing and one can say makes up for the missed call about Travolta. This film is a fascinating exposition of the Western Ethos, which, among other things, asserts that you can figure it out and do something about it and that there is paradise on the other side of The New Frontier should you be willing to risk life and limb and accept this mission. This film is very interesting to compare with THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and of course, Kurosawa's internationally acclaimed SEVEN SAMURAI. While it would be presumptuous of me to claim it has the stature of the Kurosawa masterpiece, it deals with similar issues of bravery, duty and the willingness to sacrifice for values and ideals that are larger than oneself.Having read the book, I was somewhat disappointed that all six missions were not presented in a telescoping and accelerated manner, as the book was an excellent breakdown of different salient points of the Space Program in its embryonic beginnings. Scott Carpenter's mission was important to the film because he was actually doing experiments in the manner of a Space Scientist. He got so involved in his experiments he missed his landing site by over a hundred miles. Or was it a malfunction of the automatic stabilizer? Hmmnnn...? Wally Schirra's mission which was composed of maneuvering tests got more thoroughly into the actual mechanics of how one would pilot a craft in space and would have been interesting to see on film. A shame these missions were omitted. That being said, one cannot argue against the spell cast upon the viewer by the picaresque and elegiac flow of scenes and the compelling and at times rousing musical score of Bill Conti.Since I lived through the events of the Mercury program and remember vividly John Glenn's conversationally homey way of sharing his experience with all the world, the film has a great sense of resonance with me. Until the moon landing, it was probably the greatest reality show of its day. Ed Harris captures the force of the Glenn persona perfectly. Scott Glenn also gives us a fully colored, multi-layered Alan Shepard. The rest of the crew from Fred Ward as Gus Grissom to Scott Paulin as Deke Slayton to Lance Heriksen as Wally Schirra and Pamela Reed playing Trudy Cooper with Dennis Quaid as her husband Gordon Cooper to all the rest of the astronauts' wives and Barbara Hersey as Glennis Yeager as well as Kim Stanley as Poncho Barnes round out an ensemble that makes this more a character driven story in spite of its technological trappings and gravitas.But make no mistake, despite all the humor and memorable quotes by the truckload, this is a film that casts technology in an almost religious light and posits test pilots as members of a priesthood inevitably prone to spawn martyrs. Like the single combat warriors of a bygone age that Wolfe compares them to, or the samurai of more recent times, it appears that they live by a code as binding as the Bushido. Something unspoken and unwritten that has to be lived to be fully understood. Sam Shepard plays Chuck Yeager as a combination of Wyatt Earp, Abe Lincoln and Daniel Boone. He is all that the Western Heroic Mythos is about. The willingness to handle deadly force, the careful judiciousness of a humble servant of the people just doing his duty, the restless spirit of a frontiersmen anxious to play a part in a pioneering vision. Whether this is actually Chuck Yeager or not, it is still an attractive and charismatic portrayal.The last scenes say it all. While not as stirring as it was in the book, the scene involving Chuck Yeager's reach for the edge of Space, while the public relations machine all about LBJ grinds and dances around the Mercury Seven, still nails down that quality beyond macho that you find in a good parent, a good teacher, a good scientist or artist or inventor or a skilled expert at his trade having the time of his or her life against all odds. When the narrator who started this whole thing comes back in to wrap it all up the way Mark Twain would, we have a sense that we may have finally gotten a glimpse of people, warts and all, who truly have the - What was that question again? How many times did Gordon Cooper orbit the Earth? I think he went twenty-two times around, didn't he?

The Right Stuff. The name alone will make anyone want to go see this. It uses enough generic pronouns and adjectives to sucker the viewer into watching this. I bet that many people had no idea it was about aviation and space travel. Is it bad to have an unclear title? Of course not. As long as it sounds good and fits in with the story. The Right Stuff fits so well with the story because that is what it is about and what it has.The Right Stuff is generally said to be the second best film of the 1980s only behind Raging Bull. I disagree, only because there were other movies that I thought were better. But I do think that The Right Stuff is one of the true great American films that achieves the status of excellence.The Right Stuff follows a group of pilots over a course of several years and their journeys as astronauts. Right off the bat, the filming of the flying is done to a high calibre. We get a first- person look during some of the missions that's intense and beautiful. This stuff happens in many different parts of the movie that can make any movie ignoramus like those particular scenes. Yes the flying sequences are first-rate, it is the character development that really makes this stand above other movies of its kind. We get to know and like some of the pilots. The first one we get to know is Chuck Yeager (Shepard) who lives a peaceful life and perseveres to break the sound barrier. He lacks a college degree, so he is not chosen to be an astronaut like some other pilots he knows. Seven pilots are chosen to compete with Russia's space program and they and their families are written very well. Alan Shepard and Gordon Cooper (Glenn, Quaid) are my favourite characters though. All their wives don't want them to go out on suicide-missions and become widows, but the men love what they do. The media attracts them, making them international superstars who believe they have " the right stuff". The men eat it up and think they are super-humans. As the movie goes on, their egos get to them and there are malfunctions with the rockets. These serve as symbols reflecting their personalities. Eventually, they get better and everything becomes a success. Hallelujah! The Right Stuff is an avant-garde, patriotic film. So cheesy how everything is overcome and they defend the honour of one's country. But I can't really say that's a bad thing. The only real flaw I can give this would be that at 193 minutes, it is dragged out, ever-so slightly.

This is one of my favourite movies but it is not perfect but that has more to do with the book on which it is based. Tom Wolfe doesn't seem to be sure about whether he wants to write about breaking the sound barrier or the early days of the space program which makes it somewhat bi-polar. I tend to view it as two movies in one and can separate and appreciate both aspects.On the whole it is very well executed and certainly the desert scenes bring a realism to the early test pilot days.I am not sure about some of the acting in the astronaut sequences. I find Dennis Quaid to be especially irritating but don't know whether he is playing character to type, or over-hamming it. I thought his role could have been throttled back somewhat. I also thought the character of Lyndon Johnson was also a bit over-cooked although quite entertaining. My favourite line is when he asks Werner von Braun whether or not 'we can beat the Ruskies?' to which WVB replies 'of course, our Germans are better than their Germans'. Classic.Highly recommended and makes a good companion piece to Apollo 13 and From the Earth to the Moon.