One of the classic conspiracy theories and one of the more persistent ones is that the moon landing was a hoax, a film directed by Stanley Kubrick. French director William Karel took this story and made the mockumentary Opération Lune (Dark Side of the Moon) in 2002. Of course, as many people do not understand satire, many a conspiracy theorist thought this only proved them right.
Capricorn One was inspired by all of the moon landing hoax stories. The destination this time is planet Mars. Mere seconds before a crew of three astronauts it to take off, they are led from their aircraft Capricorn One and brought before Dr. Kelloway, who explains to them that the life support system installed in Capricorn One is faulty and the flight would be too big a risk for them. However, blowing off the mission is not an option, as the funding for the space program is in jeopardy and the general interest in space travel has been waning for some time now. So, everyone is led to believe that the mission went ahead as planned.
Even ground control is unaware of what is happening. One technician reports wrong readings with his terminal. He became suspicious when the TV feed reached his station before the feed from the aircraft, which is of course impossible. He discusses this with his reporter friend Caulfield (Elliot Gould, appearing to replay his role of Philip Marlowe) and when Caulfield tries to follow up with him, the technician has simply disappeared.
The astronauts are kept in hiding for months until the originally scheduled landing of Capricorn One. The plan is to have the capsule land off course to give the people in the know an excuse for not having a live feed and time enough to retrieve the trio. Unfortunately, the aircraft loses its heat protecting shield on re-entry and burns up. This means that officially the astronauts must have died during the incident. When the three realize what has happened and consequently fear for their lives during the extended cover up scheme, they hi-jack a plane and take off, due to lack of fuel in the middle of the desert. To increase their chances of making it back to civilization before being found by the puppet masters of the operation, they take off into different directions, while unmarked helicopters comb the desert in search of them.
Meanwhile, their families mourn their losses and attend memorial services. And Caulfield is the only one, who believes that something is not quite right and goes off into the desert to search for the astronauts himself. He hires a small airplane with pilot and actually finds one of them, Chales Brubaker, the only one who managed to avoid being captured.
Their only chance of survival at this point is to make a very public appearance. They do so by showing up at a very public memorial service, skipping in slo-mo.
7/10
