Major government conspiracy exposed

Rating: 4/10 (29 March 2020)

I was engrossed with the Apollo missions and followed them avidly and closely (yes, I'm that old). So imagine my surprise to discover Neal Armstrong suffered from serious mental health issues during his entire tenure at NASA. The movie portrays him as suffering from severe depression over the loss of his daughter, and as having a marriage that could best be described as dysfunctional. Yet despite what we've been told for the last 55 or so years, NASA apparently not only knew of these problems, they totally ignored them. Having had a career in the Air Force I can comfortably say no pilot would have been allowed to fly with the mental health signals Armstrong was portrayed as blatantly exhibiting in this movie. How could NASA have possibly hidden such a monumental and dangerous issue as this for so long? Or could it be that Hollywood isn't depicting historical events and actions in an accurate and ethical manner? The movie isn't 100% gloom and doom. I caught Ryan Gosling almost cracking a smile on at least two occasions, and there was even a shot of sunshine once, but it was partially obscured by smoke. I've never understood the fascination some in Hollywood have with making movies that are dark, gloomy and depressing. Movies are supposed to be entertaining, and while historical events are often difficult to depict in their entirety in movies, they should at least make an effort to be somewhat historically accurate. This movie misses on both counts.