Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Set in the futuristic dystopia of, checks notes, 2018, Rollerball introduces us to the most famous practitioner of the titular sport, James Caan’s Jonathan E, playing the deadly sport for the Houston team in what would be an international league, were nations still a thing. They’ve gone out of fashion, apparently after some nasty warfare business, with all decisions now left to the care of, well, business, with corporations running the world, and your life.
And also Jonathan’s life, as a corporate bigwig tells him to retire. Most of the film’s world-building comes through Jonathan’s quest to find out why he’s being asked to retire, a quest which mostly meets with dead ends and false hope while getting all the more dangerous for him, as he continues to defy his corporate masters.
This ultimately leads to a deadlier than usual final game of the season, an already highly dangerous fusion of roller derby, the videogame Speedball, with a twist of Roman-era gladiatorial chariot racing, now with all rules suspended. Wait, there were rules before?
This was, somehow, my first dalliance with Rollerball, at least as far as my addled memory goes, and I’m left a bit torn. One one hand,I do want to automatically applaud films that don’t dump reams of exposition on you and Rollerball relies on the audience following Jonathan along as he wakes up from the apparent slumber of the decadence people are living in, and questioning how the system came to be and how the world really works.
On the other hand, I’m not convinced Jonnyboy actually finds a great many answers, so you’re left to fill in the gaps yourself with a lack of information that encourages more idle guessing than informed speculation. I mean, that whole “consulting the world’s central computer and its mad scientist keeper” sequence practically rubs your nose in its refusal to be drawn.
That aside, there’s not much of a concrete message other than “corporations bad, freedom good”, and while we’re here we should also point out that the world corporations are building currently has little in common with what Rollerball is serving us. However, even if I didn’t appreciate the answers, or lack of them, I was drawn along enough by the questions.
On the more nuts and bolts level, I’d say this more or less holds up. The sport itself makes for some fun actions sequences – I could have maybe done with them being cut back a little, but then again, it is sort of the basis of the film. Director Norman Jewison keeps things moving along well enough for the era, although, bear in mind this is pre Star Wars 70’s sci-fi, so expect a very different pacing from modern works.
James Caan’s fine in the role, but the character doesn’t have all that much of an opportunity to either grow or really show much emotion, although those few opportunities are grabbed well enough. Cinematography from Douglas Slocombe keeps things interesting, even if the far flung future of Rollerball‘s 2018 holds little relation to the historical record.
So then, I don’t regret watching this, and there’s enough interesting ideas here to give this a recommendation even if it didn’t blow my doors off.