If “The Astronaut Farmer” had been based on a true story, it might have some quirkier-than-fiction appeal: a regular Joe, a rancher in Texas, constructs an actual NASA-scaled rocket in his barn.
As I was watching this movie, I kept hoping I would remember some news story about the incident. But “The Astronaut Farmer” is all made up, which somehow makes it that much more annoying.
Meet Charles Farmer (played by Billy Bob Thornton) and his extremely happy, supportive family. As everybody in town knows, Charles was once an astronaut candidate with NASA. He’s always had the itch to go into space.
Well, maybe more than an itch. When you spend what must have been hundreds of thousands of dollars on building a workable spacecraft in your backyard, that’s crazy itchy.
As Farmer’s dream gets closer to reality, all he really needs is 10,000 gallons of high-grade rocket fuel – just like dreamers everywhere. The media get hold of the story, and Farmer’s former astronaut pal (Bruce Willis, unbilled) comes down for a look-see.
Of course, there are naysayers, those people who think that spending your savings and endangering the future of your wife and children (not to mention maybe blowing up the town nearby) is selfish and absurd. To which I can only add: Those naysayers have a point.
Perhaps I found “The Astronaut Farmer” a chore to sit through because Charles Farmer struck me as an irresponsible idiot. By the time he launches his first rocket, which careens horizontally across the prairie and rips a hole in a billboard while miraculously avoiding living creatures, I’d had enough of the dream.
Virginia Madsen plays Farmer’s wife, and it’s just a coincidence that she plays the wife of another obsessive, Jim Carrey, in “The Number 23,” also opening today. That movie admits to being a nightmare, while “The Astronaut Farmer” is a whimsical and lighthearted affair.
The film comes from the Polish brothers (that’s their name, not their nationality), twin filmmakers who did “Northfork.” They write the script, Michael directs, and Mark acts – here, he’s cast as an FBI observer. The cast is filled out by Bruce Dern in the cagey old-timer role (not unlike his part in “Madison”) and Tim Blake Nelson as a small-town lawyer.
“The Astronaut Farmer” tries to be an old-fashioned, feel-good picture, but the wheels creak. If David Lynch had made this movie (along the lines of his “Straight Story”), he might have given it an oddball edge that cuts the sweetness. But even Billy Bob Thornton isn’t vinegary enough to change this formula.
Billy Bob Thornton stars in “The Astronaut Farmer.”
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