This film has both good and bad components. The good: in many ways it is haunts and eats after you, and after the film one feels very dejected. This bad feeling hangs around with you for a long time after you watch it. Sadness for the lives lost, sadness for the engineers who tried to stop the launch but couldn't and anger at Morton-Thikol and NASA management.
Also good was befitting musical score that fit the film perfectly. Even the very well done opening titles/credits set the tone of the tone of the film and puts the viewer in a somber state.
On the bad side: poorly written dialogue, at times, sophomoric acting, with the exception of the lead, Eric Hanson. He does a very good job even with some dialogue that sounds as if it were written by a novice student in a creative writing class. Although the material is engrossing, your mind never truly forgets you are watching a film, and a rather amateur attempt, at a film. The director has little clue about pacing or how to get uniformity in acting from the casts. Even Dean Cain comes across no better than a a high school kid in a class production.
The characters come across as caricatures instead of real life characters. Yet amazingly, because you know it's a true and sad story, you accept all the amateur production values and get emotionally involved. If nothing else it is educational, and I think everyone should see it.
Now days this is literally nothing. In a major motion picture this would be the salary of just one minor player. The low production costs explain the problems with the film. Had it been given a large budget, a reputable director and a class writer, it would have been an A+ film. I don't want to denigrate this film, as considering the budge, it was as well done as could possibly have been.. As mentioned the opening credits are very professional and set the stage, and most of the visual elements are quite well done.
The film never mentions the name of the actual rocket booster contractor, presumably because of a potential lawsuit against the filmakers. The contractor who made the rocket boosters was Morton-Thiokol of Utah. Yes, the same Morton Ccompany that puts salt on your dinner table was the company that also murdered seven astronauts The top management of Morton-Thikol overrode the the recommendations of its engineers that the launch should be postponed until the outdoor temperatures at Cape Canaveral had risen.
By all means, watch this movie. Just try to not concentrate on its amateur dialogue, acting and direction, but concentrate on the message it is presenting. There is something we should all learn from this film..... never be pressure by others to not do what we know is right.
