1983 / 193m - USA
Adventure, Drama
1.5*/5.0*
The Right Stuff poster

Watches

May 10, 2021

1.5*/5.0*

As space travel is getting more and more common these days, it's always nice to look back to where it all started. The Right Stuff appeared to be a film that would deliver exactly that, and in some ways it does too, but man do you have to be in the mood for some good old American yee-haw if you want to get to the end of it.

The film follows a team of pilots as they are prepped to become America's first astronauts. There's a space race with Russia going on, so even though Yeager is the first to breach the sound barrier, the news is kept quiet. Technicians, pilots and the wives at home all chip in and play their part in the US' big space victory.

The characters are highly unpleasant, performances are rather poor, so spending three full hours with them is quite the chore. There's also way too much padding, I understand that a 3-hour runtime is supposed to underline the epicness of the undertaking, but it doesn't pan out when all you're getting is some bad drama. There's about 90 minutes of borderline decent material here, the rest is sentimental garbage.