“Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don’t care, I’m still free
You can’t take the sky from me … .”– Sonny Rhodes, The Ballad of Serenity
Speaking at Rice University on September 12th, 1962, President John F. Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Since then, space exploration has both blossomed and waned, the interest and perceived value of space exploration going through phases internationally. While NASA continues to look toward the stars to enhance human existence, data from the Webb Telescope reshaping how we view the solar system and beyond (see: 2024 documentary Deep Space), there are independent organizations striving to escape from Earth’s gravity in an effort to privatize space travel. One such company, Firefly Aerospace, co-founded by Tom Markusic, takes center stage in Scott Edwards’s feature-film Go Like Hell, having its world premiere at Atlanta Film Festival 2024, which follows Markusic and Firefly over the course of six-seven years in their battle to break through the atmosphere.
A scene from Scott Edwards’s documentary GO LIKE HELL. Photo courtesy of Atlanta Film Festival.
Markusic is an engineer with an impressive resume. Before co-founding Firefly, the Ph. D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering Princeton University grad worked in various roles with NASA and the United States Air Force, as well as Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX. Designing rockets is one thing, but running a company is something else entirely. Without cover of any kind, Markusic invites Edwards (and us through Edwards) into the world of Firefly, using talking head interviews with Firefly employees and locals to Briggs, Texas, live-captured footage of events, and archival materials (personal and professional) so as to give audiences as complete a story on what it takes to compete in the field of aeronautics. Beyond the obvious of a great deal of funding, Edwards reveals tenacity and passion as key ingredients, but also humility and a recognition that mission success isn’t just breaching the outer atmosphere.
If you’re not into aeronautics at all, Go Like Hell still remains fairly accessible as Edwards takes great pains to center the people as much as the company. The things that are important for the audience to know regarding rocket propulsion, space shuttle stage separation, where things go wrong — time is spent to explain. No one’s going to walk away being able to teach lectures on the material, but there’s enough of a base to be able to understand what the experts (the Firefly team) are talking about. That’s what really matters here as Edwards transitions between talking head interviews with various members of the team (the head of various departments and teams, as well as Markusic), and showing what’s happening “as it happens.” Through a bit of clever editing and structure, Edwards crafts an overarching story that’s full of human drama, resulting in a great deal of cheering and gasps from the audience that lineup to match the participants within the doc.
A scene from Scott Edwards’s documentary GO LIKE HELL. Photo courtesy of Atlanta Film Festival.
When referring to the editing and structure, don’t mistake that to mean that Edwards pieces together a story. Go Like Hell opens on the launch of their Alpha rocket, also their first fully-completed rocket, Edwards jumping between mission control, an indoor venue for spectators, and an outdoor one, each one filled with Firefly employees, investors, and locals from Briggs, Texas, where the aerospace organization is located (though the launch site is in California). Throwing the audience in, we can feel the tension and excitement as thousands of pounds of power start to take off, and then Edwards cuts us back to 2016 when Markusic announces they are fully-funded, the question as to whether their Alpha rocket succeeded hanging in the air until, through the various trials and tribulations, we start to forget about it entirely. This isn’t a slight on the significance of whether it fulfils its task or not, rather it speaks to how well Edwards imbeds us with Firefly that while we know their future includes a full launch as they struggle to complete testing, including an incident where they light a field on fire, potential glory awaits them. We forget it as we journey with the 2016 thru 2022 versions who don’t know yet. Editor Angelica Damaso makes sure that the jumps between people and locations are easy to follow, something which is especially important in the main chronological portion of the film as some of the dialogue from the interviewees is used both as a transition to a new sequence or as the way out. Between the structure and editing, the already existing tension of the Firefly story is infused with an extra oomph.
A scene from Scott Edwards’s documentary GO LIKE HELL. Photo courtesy of Atlanta Film Festival.
Worth taking a moment to explore is the truly brilliant cinematography from Matt Godwin and Edwards. The regular sequences — the interviews, capturing them at work — these look good: clear, clean, and modern. But where the film gets impressive is in the capturing of the working rockets, whether in test situations or actual trials. Godwin and Edwards capture the equipment in the kinds of close-ups and with the kinds of details audiences expect from a National Geographic presentation, not a potential first-time feature. (In researching ahead of the review, little is available on Edwards outside of his Merit Productions profile and nonexistent on cinema staples IMDB and Letterboxd.) Yet the way they capture the beauty of the Texas sunset, the power of a roaring rocket engine, or the quiet seriousness of the Firefly offices (which scenes before or after might appear bustling with light energy), the visuals make one feel like they’re watching something extraordinary from practiced cinematographers who understand the power an image holds on pulling the audience into a story.
A scene from Scott Edwards’s documentary GO LIKE HELL. Photo courtesy of Atlanta Film Festival.
The significant downside to the documentary is that we don’t get to know much about Markusic as a person holistically, at least not in the traditional sense. In a rather intimate moment, Markusic comments about how his relationship with Firefly and it being intrinsic to who he is. As the co-founder and CEO of a start-up, especially one in such a high octane, high pressure field, it makes a certain amount of sense that he wouldn’t be able to identify himself outside of Firefly. It’s a powerful gut-check moment showcasing just how much Markusic has put into the company and is a final signal (of many displayed throughout the doc) that the man never viewed Firefly as anything other than a passion, making it harder for him to disconnect, recharge, or have something outside of it. That said, though we’re introduced to his wife at the start and she’s visible, though we infer from a photo that they have two children, we don’t learn anything beyond the edges of things that touch Firefly. Yet, these are also the things that shape him. Given how Edwards already has so much to cover — rises, falls, rebounds, failures, successes — it may have been a step too far beyond the scope of the documentary to dig in further to the creator of Firefly.
A scene from Scott Edwards’s documentary GO LIKE HELL. Photo courtesy of Atlanta Film Festival.
Being of age enough to call myself an old Browncoat, between the naming of the company (plus its logo) and the tag Markusic applies to another rocket, “To The Black,” one certainly creates a picture in their mind that the engineer is something of a nerd. With this in mind, one comes away from Go Like Hell with an absolute appreciation for the man who refers to himself as a good engineer and a terrible CEO, yet who earned the trust of all of his employees, who reformed his team after overcoming financial losses (something not a lot of leaders do), and who spent his days inspiring his employees by leading by example. He may not be Malcolm Reynolds (iykyk), but he’s certainly close. Thanks to Scott Edwards, we get to learn about someone within the aeronautic space that isn’t a crazed egomaniac with more money than sense and wants to pursue privatization of space out of a love for rocketry and engineering. Even for all the times that the film might leave you feeling wanting, it’s no less inspiring.
Screening during Atlanta Film Festival 2024.
For more information, head to the official ATLFF 2024 Go Like Hell webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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