In the Dead of Space (1999)
[+]
(Foreign Titles)
Nomination Year: 2014
SYNOPSIS: In space, no one can hear you facepalm. Two cosmonauts are aboard the international space station -- a Russian mission commander and a French life scientist. A shuttle is bringing up two more crew members -- an American physicist (Michael Pare) and an American golf pro, who is funding the next year of station operations through a combination of his own money and filming in-orbit TV segments for his sponsors. On final approach, however, the shuttle crashes into the station, severely damaging it. Meanwhile, in Moscow, police find a dead hooker clutching a space station mission patch in her hand. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Moscow, police raid a terrorist safe-house and find records showing a plan to infiltrate an agent onto the space station and crash it into Los Angeles.
This sets up a tense psychological drama as the cosmonauts try to figure out who they can trust while the authorities on the ground frantically race to figure out who the traitor(s) is (are?) before it's too late. At least, it does in some alternative, good, version of this film. In THIS movie, the Russian commander barely has time to drink some vodka and screw the Frenchwoman before Michael Pare knifes him during an EVA, at which point the feline is pretty well out of the flight bag. A few minutes later, he clubs the golf pro, and then the rest of the movie is devoted to him ranting maniacally, with occasional breaks for him and the Frenchwoman to stalk each other around the station.
Greg Pearson
