Movie Review #18 - Rollerball
Jan. 2nd, 2007 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2Yes, the 1975 original version! I saw this many years ago, not that long after it came out - and hated it. Watching it now, I see something completely different in it.
First look at watch - NEVER - I couldn't get over how different it was from how I remembered it!
I do remember coming away from my first viewing of this in about 1977-78(?) with a negative opinion of this movie because I saw it as glorifying the success of the violent individual. Watching it now (and paying a lot more attention to the "boring" talking bits in between the heart-stopping action sequences), I see an individual (James Caan as Jonathan E.) stripped of almost everything except his freedom of choice who then exercises that choice in a way which defies both Big Business (as personified by Bartholomew - played by John Houseman - and represented by the Energy Corporation, a suitably generically named agency) and defies the dehumanising nature of the game he is in - and yet he is still enough of a team player to win the game for all his fallen team mates.
Good bits - the gradual reveal of just how much has ben stripped away from Jonathan E., the computer's overload after Jonathan asks it "Who makes corporate decisions?", the retirement / farewell dinner before the big game - with that many whispers and asides that even I started to feel like they were talking about me(maybe that's just my natural paranoia kicking in!), the tree shooting scene where the excesses of the corporate executives come flooding out.
Bad bits - James Caan, button up your frigging shirt and put that horsehair mat away, John Houseman, sorry but I think he is awful in this - he can't do "menacing" to save himself and why does 2018 look just like 1975 but with a few lame "appliances"?
Overall a great movie which, despite showing the ravages of age on the surface, has a strong and enduring message packed into a reflective movie which also has some of the best sports action shots of all time.
First look at watch - NEVER - I couldn't get over how different it was from how I remembered it!
I do remember coming away from my first viewing of this in about 1977-78(?) with a negative opinion of this movie because I saw it as glorifying the success of the violent individual. Watching it now (and paying a lot more attention to the "boring" talking bits in between the heart-stopping action sequences), I see an individual (James Caan as Jonathan E.) stripped of almost everything except his freedom of choice who then exercises that choice in a way which defies both Big Business (as personified by Bartholomew - played by John Houseman - and represented by the Energy Corporation, a suitably generically named agency) and defies the dehumanising nature of the game he is in - and yet he is still enough of a team player to win the game for all his fallen team mates.
Good bits - the gradual reveal of just how much has ben stripped away from Jonathan E., the computer's overload after Jonathan asks it "Who makes corporate decisions?", the retirement / farewell dinner before the big game - with that many whispers and asides that even I started to feel like they were talking about me(maybe that's just my natural paranoia kicking in!), the tree shooting scene where the excesses of the corporate executives come flooding out.
Bad bits - James Caan, button up your frigging shirt and put that horsehair mat away, John Houseman, sorry but I think he is awful in this - he can't do "menacing" to save himself and why does 2018 look just like 1975 but with a few lame "appliances"?
Overall a great movie which, despite showing the ravages of age on the surface, has a strong and enduring message packed into a reflective movie which also has some of the best sports action shots of all time.
