The Astronaut Farmer(2007)- User Reviews

The only thing more overwhelming than the disjointed storyline and plot is how much contempt and spite this movie holds for the audience. And its anti-Republican sentiments are even an insult to Democrats. (i.e., The fuel distributor, when Billy Bob puts in an order for 50,000 pounds of rocket fuel, says that such an order is impossible due to the Patriot Act putting its nose into freedom ... good thing the fertilizer distributor who sold Timothy McVeigh thousands of pounds of his product that eventually took down the Murrah building wasn't so suspcious, much less cynical.) When the FAA investigator queries Billy Bob farmer why they shouldn't think he's not building WMDs with his rocket, the side-splitting response is of course that if he were building WMDs, they wouldn't find them! HOhoHAha ... Frankly, the farmer character couldn't spell WMD if he were spotted the W and the M ...

The acting, while credible, is wasted on far-fetched dialogue and characters. Hard to believe that any man or woman, once they found out their spouse had not only remortaged the farm not once but SIX times to the tune of $600,000 and bank foreclosure, then uses her inheritance from her dazed, dead dad played by Bruce Dern (probably wondering how his agent talked him into this movie) to not only pay off the debt, but then give the remainder to her lying, out-of-touch husband to rebuild his rocket so that he can, "follow his dreams." The touchy-feely bit just has no reach with such a whacked storyline.

"Plot convenience theater" also insults the viewer, as it answers the question, where does the farmer get the parts to build his rocket?, by citing that there is a scrapyard for all spent, scrapped, junked rockets, missiles, and related computer equipment. If the FAA or FBI doesn't want people building their own rockets, why is such a yard open to the public? Rockets R Us, indeed ...

All government agencies (under a Republican-based admin, naturally) are portrayed as either evil, inept, or both. The FBI agents look like Napoleon Dynamite extras, bumbling their way keeping tabs on the farmer ... the FAA is naturally eager to first take down the farmer's "dream" -- which is what, as said in the movie, government agencies do -- and then quick to cover up his successful launch once he rebuilds his rocket (which he seemingly did in a montage covering a weekend on the ranch) ... Child Protective Services is sinister, confronting the farmer's wife at her greasy spoon job on the subject that, oh, duh, her husband has removed their three children from school so that they may be part of his "program" at home. Funny, too, how the first and failed attempt of the rocket launch shatters windows and shakes foundations ... yet, the second successful attempt goes unnoticed except by the local yokel rednecks in the local town?

As a previous reviewer posted, this movie is also an insult to those who served in the space program either as astronauts, engineers, technicians, and in any capacity. Hundreds of individual man-hours in training, billions of dollars spent to design and build ... yet the farmer -- who Thorton portrays at times as the less smarter cousin of Forrest Gump and Raymond Babbit (Rainman) -- does it all for the wee pricetag of $600K with parts from the aforementioned junkyard? Not to mention he has "trained" his 15-year-old son the ins-and-outs of mission control ... and obviously given his wife some sort of labotomy to stick around, thinking that she is doing a reunion episode of "Thirtysomething."

The CGIs and other digital effects are fine: much more believable than anything else on screen.

One must wonder, too, why Bruce Willis did not want his name included among the credits? His role was large enough to be more than cameo. In fact, once he appeared on screen, there is a slight flash of hope that the movie will somehow pick up in pace and plot. It does neither.

I don't apologize for not noting the above spoilers beforehand: If I've disuaded once person from wasting even a $1 in the Family Video "Favorites" section, then my heart is warmed.