Rollerball

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Year:	1975
Country of origin:	UK
Director:	Norman Jewison
Genre:	Tedious dystopian vision
Starring:	James Caan, John Houseman, Maud Adams
Rating:	2/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073631/
Tagline:	In the not-too-distant future, wars will no longer exist...
Favourite line:	None worth mentioning

Fondly remembered cult sci-fi.

The plot:
It’s the near future, 2018, and the world is a changed place. Gone are countries and their borders, replaced by mega-corporations which control every aspect of the citizens’ lives. In this dystopia, feelings are frowned upon, thought almost a crime, and, to keep the population sated, a new game is created.
Rollerball.
Part hockey, part basketball, part NASCAR racing, the game is played on a circular rink. All competitors are on wheels, be they roller-skates, or motorbikes. The object of the game is simple: outscore your opponents, by any means necessary.
One player, Jonathan E (James Caan) seems to be becoming bigger than the sport itself, becoming a personality in his own right, so The Company tell him he must resign.
Reluctant to comply, those that run the game keep changing the rules, making each match more and more dangerous in a desperate bid to be rid of Jonathan, one way or the other.br />

Really looked forward to the screening of this one, here at Smell the Cult HQ.
Dreadfully disappointed by it in the end.
Maybe it’s all my fault. Perhaps I’d built it up too much. It’ a cult favourite, after all, and I’ve never really heard a bad word said about it.
It’s a decent concept, and slots in neatly with such seventies dystopian fare as Death Race 2000, or even Logan’s Run. It’s one of those, though, much like Logan’s Run, where the memory seems to be preferable to the reality.
Dull as badger’s tits for the most part, this really should have been an eighty minute exploitation piece, snappy, violent, full of menace.
Instead, it lumbers on for over two hours, Caan’s character pontificating endlessly about the place Rollerball has in society. All very highbrow I suppose but, fuck me, it’s tedious.
Notorious for the violence of the matches themselves, and here too I was left frustrated. Heh, I know it was the mid-seventies, but even so it still felt tame. I was hoping for a limb or two being ripped off, or a decapitation at the very least, but the best we get is a bloke running around on fire.
Caan himself looks bored throughout, presumably wondering how he could go from The Godfather to this in three short years, and never convinces as the man railing against the conventions of the society he finds himself in.
Hailed as a cult classic it may very well be, but a bit of a dud is the overall verdict.
Very disappointed.