Countdown

“The motion picture that puts a man on the moon and you follow him every terrifying second of the way.”

Lee Stegler (James Caan) wants to be the first American on the moon, and with the Russians closing in, NASA moves him to the front of an accelerated program. The plan leaves him alone in a lunar shelter for a year, and his rival Chiz (Robert Duvall) is still waiting to see if Lee flies. Altman lets the characters speak over one another, and the overlapping talk gives the whole program a nervous hum.