Director: Michael Polish
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce Dern, Matthew Kimbrough, Bruce Willis, J.K. Simmons

- Reviewed by Tom

The Astronaut Farmer reminded me of October Sky, where the main character, Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) is obsessed with building a rocket to shoot himself into space. Unlike October Sky, however, this is totally fictional, and Farmer is building a rocket to shoot himself into space for one orbit around the earth. The movie starts out kind of strange where he is riding around his ranch on a horse while wearing a silver space suit. We're not sure why he is doing this, but later in the morning he shows up at his kid's school in his "costume" (as the teacher complimented him), but he was totally serious about his space suit (which he obtained used from NASA? Ebay?... not sure since it wasn't totally clear).

In his quest to fly in space, Farmer nearly goes bankrupt, almost loses his farm, house, and everything when the bank tries to get back the $600,000 he owes. But somehow his wife and three kids support him the whole way, even though the people in the town and world think he is a nutcase. The story spends a lot of time on how the Feds, FBI, FAA, and CIA are on his back trying to ground him and convince him to leave space travel to the "experts". In Farmer's struggle to keep his flight going, he becomes a world-wide celebrity who shows up in Jay Leno jokes, tabloids and the covers of many magazines.

There are several sequences in the movie that are confusing, just don't make much sense, or need more plot to describe why certain things happened. There is a sequence that seems that it should be a dream or nightmare, but it did happen—you are sitting there waiting for someone to wake up, but they don't (no details on this, it would be a spoiler, but you'll see what I mean!).

The physics were pretty messed up in the movie also:

• The rocket is a clone of a Mercury Atlas rocket used by NASA in the early 60s. There is a scene where the thing should have just blown up, but didn't. The real Atlas was basically a very fragile aluminum "balloon" which got its strength from pressurized fuel.
• Why didn't the barn burn down or explode when the rocket launched?
• How did his 15-year-old son (mission controller in a Airstream trailer) maintain communications with Farmer most of the time when the spacecraft was on the other side of the planet?
• How about an explanation how he lost communication? (Yes, vague... but again this is a spoiler with too much detail!)

OK, I'm being picky, it's just Hollywood fiction!

Overall I did like the movie and found it entertaining, but there was just something missing. The best way I could describe the movie in one word is "flat". It wasn't boring, but not really super exciting—there just should have been more to it. The Astronaut Farmer will be a good DVD to rent from Netflix in a few months, or just a matinee movie for the theater.

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