Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent but underrated film

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The race to space gets heated between the U.S. and Russia after Russia announces a planned lunar orbit using three civilians; it's determined that just one American astronaut will make the pilgrimage to the moon, where he must remain for a year in a shelter until an Apollo mission can bring him home. The decision to send a geologist (James Caan) over a more-knowledgeable military man (Robert Duvall) causes tempers to flare between the two friends (Caan tells Duvall, "You've got the guts but you haven't got the brains!") and for Caan's wife to worry about his return. Early directorial effort from Robert Altman was one the filmmaker publicly denounced (his artistic vision was strait-jacketed by executive producer William Conrad, who shot additional scenes after production wrapped). While the project is certainly a curio for film historians, it isn't an exciting movie. Youthful Caan, Duvall and Michael Murphy all look terrific, and yet they all dress and talk the same--there's no personality in evidence before or behind the camera. ** from ****

Not a great film but very much worth it for Altman fans. In many ways it's a conventional cold war drama, but it has some wicked resonances if you see the Robert Duvall astronaut character as what he was surely meant to be: an over the top version of John Glenn: a boy scout rah rah guy who can't stand the much hipper, laid back James Caan, who is a stand-in for the real astronaut Al Shepard. (Wolfe's The Right Stuff, if I recall, has useful material on the mutual distrust between Glenn and Shepard.) Altman tries a few tricks for which he is later famous. The primary one is overlapping dialogue. Altman hated the formal style of traditional films in which everyone speaks in complete sentences and never overlaps. You can see the overlapping here, though not to the degree that comes through in later films like M*A*S*H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Still, the innovation was enough to infuriate the studio execs when they began viewing the rough cut. Hey! We can't understand half of what the actors are saying! So they fired Altman about nine-tenths of the way through shooting. Watch closely and toward the end of the picture, you'll see a change in style as the replacement director takes over. It's much more stilted (especially in the press conference). And I recall (though can't be sure at this remove, I haven't seen or read about the picture in decades) that the original ending was a tragedy, which was changed to a happy one instead.The most effective aspect of Altman's interest in sound design was what he did when Caan loses contact with ground control as he approaches the moon. Altman heightens anxiety (Caan is already worried that Duvall is endangering his life) when the radio contact picks up static and it gets hard to hear. Caan begins to feel all alone out there, millions of miles from earth. And so do we, instinctively...we want to hear what Mission Control is saying, and their words keep breaking up. Very clever: using +bad+ sound to make viewers unconsciously uneasy. It's a great way to accomplish your goal on a lower budget project.

Looking at a film made 38 years ago (2006) about semi-reality was an actual bore. Forget Robert Altman made it (he is not that great during the next 38 years as Altman fans would have you believe) It was much more reminiscent of the soap operas of the time. I found nothing of any great interest here. The Duval/Caan game playing was lame and many of the other characters were overplayed. Yes, it is easy for me 38 years later with all the film and acting innovations that have taken place to make these comments but I simply was not entertained by the script/dialog/ and Altman's attempt at an auteur film. I will also throw in here I am not an Altman fan, or I would not spend money to see a film just because Altman made it. Michael Mann I would without question just as a comparison of my tastes.Duval is another consideration. I saw a film made in 1971 by Duval, which he claims, is his best work that was real 'art'. Quiet, simple, Wm.Faulkner 14 page tale of life in the Appalachians many years ago.This review is about Altman and 'Countdown'. The film is average at best and the auteur just starting an incredible career shows some flash of genius to come.

"Countdown," Robert Altman's first theatrical release, is the only film I've seen by the prolific director that feels nothing like an Altman project. A bit of history surrounding it reveals that Altman battled the studios over creative control, and that the final version of the film exists more as a product of the studio than of the auteur. Never again, for better or worse, would Altman relinquish control of his films, a tenacity that won him an instantly recognizable style not afforded to many other directors.So "Countdown" isn't terribly interesting formally and feels like it could have been directed by anybody, but that's not to say it isn't an interesting movie. Released a year before man actually landed on the moon, it provides a remarkably accurate guess at what such a feat would look like, and the film is played with conviction by a strong cast of actors led by James Caan, Robert Duvall and Michael Murphy. Duvall and Murphy would appear again in "MASH," and Murphy would go on to become an Altman regular. Barbara Baxley, known to Altman devotees as Haven Hamilton's wife in "Nashville," fulfills wifely duties in this film as well, though women may as well not even exist for all the attention the screenplay affords them.As a studio film, "Countdown" isn't half bad. As an Altman film, it's one of his weakest. But nevertheless, it's well worth seeking out, especially for fans of the iconoclastic director.Grade: B-