Fresh and Exciting

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A young psycho demolitions expert (Timothy Bottoms) threatens to wreak havoc at amusement parks across America until the proper authorities pay him and leave him alone. Pursuing him is a middle-aged safety inspector bureaucrat (George Segal), who's going through various mid-life crises like trying to quite smoking, visitations with his teen daughter (Helen Hunt) following a divorce, starting a new relationship, and so forth. Also along for the ride are various corporate/government/police officials who naturally often clash over how to best catch the bomber.The movie starts well enough, with Bottoms slickly planting a bomb on a roller coaster in broad daylight, then biding his time until nightfall when he remotely detonates the charge and sends derailed patrons to their doom. The photography and editing generate some good thrills, and the actors, minor and major, do their parts well.Now, with these kinds of movies, the real key is the interplay between the nominal good guys (the authorities, usually) and the bad guys. As Segal catches on to Bottoms and then has several conversations with him, it's all pretty involving. Bottoms acts very terse and businesslike, conveying the moral and emotional vacuity of a psychopath, while Segal becomes a wry and incisive analyst trying to crack a terrorist whose true motives are nearly as inscrutable as his emotions. The police think Segal a cocky amateur, but he turns out to be the better judge of criminal character.Less interesting is the bickering between aging law enforcement leader Richard Widmark and Segal. Widmark seems like a stodgy bully, outside of a few begrudging compliments to Segal. Perhaps the film-makers felt that since the psycho was in his late 20's it made it necessary to caricature the oldest character into a gruff scold, the better to pander to 70's Boomers..Segal deduces the location of the next attack, and we're left in suspense about several things. Is there a bomb? Where is it? Will they find it? Will they disarm it, before it's too late? Will they catch the perp? This isn't really a disaster movie, as it lacks the scope or spectacle. Had they wanted to, they could've upped these things with more bombings. Overall, though, the emphasis is on character interaction more than well, action. Since Segal and Bottoms make for an effective fire and ice pairing, that was the right choice to make.Why not a better rating? The movie definitely drags at times; there really isn't enough scale or plot or character depth to justify the running time. The movie wasn't a big hit, and that's probably because the marketing made it seem more epic than it is. And while the acting is good enough, only Segal and Bottoms really give something for the viewer to latch on to. A very young Helen Hunt has some presence, but her character is thankless, as are the women in Segal's life; would Dirty Harry be a better movie if the movie told us about his family? The conclusion has some things worth noting. Craig Wasson appears as an amiable "hippie boy" (that's his credit), and though he only gets about a half-dozen lines, his talent still shines through. A quasi New Wave/punk band named Sparks plays at Magic Mountain, and while their music isn't that hummable, it does have a pretty wild energy for it's time, and one particularly tensely rhythmic song bridge is used to convey the anxiety of the bomb defusing scene.

This is Mostly a Disaster and goes off the tracks more than not. It Bottoms out on Thrills and Spills as well as Suspense. It manages to take Everything that makes for a Good Movie Experience and Relegates it to those most Mundane and doesn't even Exploit its Exploitation.The All-Star Cast is mostly Wasted as is the Title Character with Pedestrian POV Shots that Neither Encompass or Elevate the Rides Appeal. it is Shot in the most Slick and Uninspired use of an Amusement Park with Post Card Images of both the Setting and the Patrons.The Dialog is not Dumb it is just Numb. Nothing in this Failed Attempt at a Thriller works and the Pacing is Staggered and Never Really Reaches a Zenith. In the End it is a Forgettable Film that has Little to Recommend. Not Awful but Awfully Anemic.

Hoping for a thrill ride? Well "Rollercoaster" does go through the ups and downs like an amusement ride, however the issue was the idea was too drawn out to sustain its suspense, even if it boils down to quite a pot- boiler that ends in poetic justice. Pockets of it do work, other times it feels flat. The psychological cat and mouse angle / banter played between two characters (the bomber and lead protagonist), especially when the bomber (Bottoms) is toying with our protagonist (Segal) in an amusement park really does strike-up tension and intrigue. Where the problem lies, is when it's not focusing on these two even though I didn't find the side-dramas distracting. Like many of these 70s disaster films, this one being man-made than those natural epics it does follow the trend of lining its cast with familiar faces. George Segal, Timothy Bottoms, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Harry Guardino, Susan Strasberg and a young Helen Hunt. Also look out for stuntman Larry Holt in a part and a tiny cameo from pre-stardom Steve Guttenberg. Segal is in great form as a grizzled, but determined technical safety supervisor who will do anything to stop Bottom's quietly intelligent bomber. Bottoms bring a fantastic uneasy quality to his role while a convincing Widmark plays a narrow-minded agent. A series of accidents are occurring in amusement parks and safety inspector Calder believes them to be linked. So he begins investigating and finds out that a psychotic extortionist is placing explosives on tracks in an attempt to blackmail these amusement parks. The FBI become involved, but the bomber takes a liking to Calder and orders these corporate bosses that Calder must deliver the money or another roller- coaster would be blown up. It's a suspenseful idea, but not fully realised despite the script being sharply penned and the park settings adding colour and personality. Some of the set-pieces do pack a punch, like the first roller-coaster mishap, where the "Rocket" (name of the ride) really does take off involving crushed cars and dummy work. It's quite an unsettling moment, which is never quite matched. The premise slowly constructs the predicament, in what is still a race against the clock and strategically planned out. Timing is everything, as director James Goldstone's steadfast, but productive handling tries to accommodate that, but it doesn't always come off. Even when he's trying to heighten its spectacular scope. The music score felt terribly overdone. In an amusing note; it was odd seeing Segal's character being offered a carton of cigarettes as prize. How have times changed. Slow and a little drawn out, but always gripping. Sure does make you wanna ride roller-coaster. "Hey Wayne, fast track today."

Roller-coaster (1977) ** (out of 4) The disaster genre was certainly running on fumes by the time this thing struck but I'd say this has a lot more in common with JAWS. A nut case (Timothy Bottoms) blows up a roller coaster ride and then blackmails the park owners for a million dollars. He forces a inspector (George Segal) to go along with the ride but after a detective (Richard Widmark) double crosses him, the psychopath picks out another park to blow up. There's barely enough plot here to fill up a TV episode so stretching it out to two-hours was just crazy because after the first deadly ride nothing happens for the rest of the film. A lot of the problem is due to the screenplay but director Goldstone doesn't do the film much justice either as there's no suspense ever built up, which is the same thing that happened to the director's next film, the real disaster WHEN TIME RAN OUT. Back to this film, I'm really not sure what they were thinking making this thing so long unless there was some unwritten rule that any disaster film had to run extra long. At the start of the film it seemed like the screenwriters were going to do something smart and that is do a JAWS on us. In that film, they gave us something everyone like (water) and made us scared of it. This film starts off by showing why people love roller coasters but then it tries to make us scared by showing bodies being broken apart after the first accident. This is all good but then the movie continues and it just goes downhill. There's really not much you can do with a plot like this because rides are either going to blow up or they're not. Here, they don't. We get a long cat and mouse game at an amusement park as Bottoms has Segal walking all over the place to try and get away from the police. This sequence feels close to an hour and not one second of it contains any suspense. The film tacks on an extra ending with the possibility of another bomb being on yet another ride but again we get no suspense. By the time the final act comes along I was struggling to stay away. The one thing the film does offer are some fun performances with Segal doing a very good job in the lead. The screenplay doesn't offer him too much development but the actor keeps thing alive with the fun performance. Widmark is also pretty good in his role and gets to play off that classic attitude in a few nice scenes. Bottoms isn't the greatest villain in history but his calm attitude works. Henry Fonda is kind enough to show and pick up a paycheck. Look quick for Helen Hunt and Steve Guttenberg. One could debate the importance of the 70s disaster flicks but there's no doubt that as the decade went along they got a lot worse. This one here isn't as bad as THE SWARM or WHEN TIME RAN OUT but at the same time there's not enough here to make it worth wasting two hours of your life.