Really Surprised!

Masterful Cinema

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

***SPOILERS*** Corporate crime and manipulation of stocks bonds and currencies is the shocking story of the movie "Rollover" that's much more like what's happening today in 2010 that back in 1981 when the film as released.In it we have a number of shadowy figures in the US and overseas who are trying to cover their behinds by siphoning off the cash accounts of the financially strapped Borough Savings Bank in order to convert their ill gotten gains into billions in gold bullion. It's when the banks CEO Charlie Winter, Garrison Lane, was found murdered in his office in the World Trade Center that it became very apparent that his murder had something to do with the banks cash flow troubles! That in the fact that Charlie uncovered in an account, #21214, that was secretly funneling millions of dollars out of it every month!With the late Charlie Winters' wife Lee, Jane Fonda, becoming the banks new president she tries to save it from going under by brokering a half billion deal a deal for a petrochemical plant in Spain with the bank getting a 1% finders fee on it. That's just enough to pay off its shareholders next dividend in order to keep it was going bankrupt. As all this is happening 1st New York Bank President Maxwell Emery, Hume Cronyn, who's a silent partner in the distressed Borough Savings Bank hires financial whiz kid Hub Smih, played by a super clean shaven Kris Kristofferson, to get to the bottom of the Borough Bank's problems. That's before the final bell, on Wall Street, rings and it collapses like a house of cards!***SPOILERS*** What Smith soon discovers is that it's non other then the man who hired him Maxwell Emery himself who's behind Borough Savings Bank's impending collapses. In Emery using account #21214 to secretly shift the banks money into it he's been bleeding the bank white and at the same timer waiting for the right moment for him as his Saudi Arabian banking partners to pull out all the money in that bank as well as some 1,200 to 1,500 other banks all across the US and Europe! That would end up making the dollar as well as any other national paper currency as worthless as the paper its printed on! As for Lee Winters, who had discovered the truth about her husbands murder, her trying to blackmail Emery and his Saudi partners in crime in having them agree on a sweetheart deal with her, to keep Lee and the Borough Bank from going bankrupt, has them put her on the hit list, like her late husband Charlie, for immediate termination!A bit over the top at the time of its release "Rollover" is in fact a forerunner to movies like "Wall Street" in how those who control power ruthlessly use it to keep them in control. Smith is soon confronted with the truth, a possible collapse of world currencies, and is together with Lee Winters totally helpless to do anything about it.***MORE SPOILERS*** As the Saudis go into panic mode in being caught with their pants down start to pull their money out of US and European banks the entire world economy goes straight to hell together with them and the person they put their trust in to keep their grandiose plan secret Maxwell Emery! As for Hub Smith and Lee Winters they like everyone else will have to start from ground zero in getting back on their feet financially after all the dust, in food monetary riots and runs on banks,clears!

Funny how art ultimately imitates life. This movie is like a Nostradomus vision of our current economic situation. Only difference is that the villains aren't Arabs, we just have to look in to the mirror to see who did it to us. Time to buy gold? Time to stock up on emergency provisions? Ebay's founder, PIERRE OMIDYAR, moved to Hawaii but has contingency plans in case of pandemic or economic collapse. See: The Honolulu Advertiser, article on front page of March, 22, 2009. It is a real hoot to see how a billionaire views the world!So don't forget to stock up on food and water, and if you can't afford a security detail of ex-secret service agents, find yourself a good firearm to protect you and your loved ones.

This is an unusual film: an adult thriller about the danger of fiscal manipulation. It's also unusual in that it remains relevant, perhaps even more so than when it was released; no less a person than renowned investor Warren Buffet has recently been warning of the dangers of having so much U.S. debt held by countries whose political agendas may not always require a stable or strong U.S. economy.But is it a good film? With some reservations, I would argue that it is. Director Alan Pakula and cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno have done a very good job of shadowing the action; rarely does anything take place in strong light, and then almost always when the action either involves the Saudis (the first meeting between the cartel and Lee Winters, played by Jane Fonda, for example) or serves their interests (e.g. the death of bank inspector Mr. Fewster). The locations, large and small, take on their own lives; the World Trade Center becomes a monolithic anthill, and there is a wonderfully ominous shot of the arrangement for Lee Winters's death being made by two men amid a crowd on a descending escalator which captures powerfully the essential isolation of the individual amid the crowds, and thus wordlessly encapsulates the underlying political concern of the film. The 720 degree pan just before the film's ambiguous coda is a marvel, one of those things which looks quite simple until one realizes the amount of work that must have gone into making it work smoothly.The performances are solid if a bit uneven. Hume Cronyn as the amoral main banker is superb, and Macon McCalman does a fine job as Fewster, a man who has gone in far beyond his depth and knows it. Fonda and Kristofferson (playing Hub Smith) are at their respective bests when portraying the manipulative sides of the characters, and less convincing in the romantic scenes (which aren't very plausible to begin with). Fonda's bleak expression when she thinks she realizes that Hub is betraying her is striking, and her reaction to the attempt on her life is completely persuasive. Kris Kristofferson seems rather stolid at first, until we realize that he is portraying a man from whom virtually all emotional capability has been leached by his dedication to success in his career; significantly, the most passionate sex scene takes place immediately after the success of a fiscal gamble of enormous proportions.The screenplay handles the difficult task of dramatizing monetary transactions well; it is less effective when portraying the love scenes, especially the initial motivation for the central affair. But the climactic confrontation between Hume Cronyn and Kris Kristofferson is spot on; rarely does a character reveal moral bankruptcy as starkly as does Cronyn's, yet his words and his delivery both demonstrate his utter unawareness of the truth about himself. Indeed, the script generally manages to be both clear (albeit complex, requiring attention) and straightforward without becoming preachy or overly didactic.The music is easily the weakest part of the film (in fact, I almost gave this a 7 based on the music alone). The opening credits are backed by one of the most insipid things I've heard in a long time, a ditzy little number that recurs regularly to no good effect, and the love music (intentionally?) conveys little of passion or even intense feeling. The music for menacing scenes has more character, but appears only intermittently, and not always when it's most needed. This score has dated badly, and undercuts the film's impact considerably.But all things considered, I still enjoyed this, and recommend it to those looking for something offbeat (and, like Pakula's "All the President's Men", somewhat deliberately paced, though I find this one slightly better overall). It's a rare film in that it almost always treats its viewers as adults capable of giving it a fair chance, yet it is structured, and often plays, like a traditional mystery thriller. But the plot is not all here; the film's unspoken message is worth hearing, and heeding, as well: that when we allow the possession and manipulation of things to take precedence over human needs, we run the risk of becoming nothing but things ourselves.

The short side of the story is that this has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Rythme-wise, the movie is dead. It makes you feel like you are attending a lecture on economy at the university. And to think that I watched the movie because it was described as a "thriller!"The story portrays an Arab plot to shake the foundations of global economy using the simple concept that there is alot more "printed" paper money than there is actual value out there in the world.First of all, the movie is offensive to Arabs. If this movie was made now, civil rights groups and Muslim/Arab groups would be all over it, in one scene, Jane Fonda says (about taking a loan from those Arabs): "I feel like a beggar asking them for money, and I HATE it!" and Kristofferson comforts her by saying: "You and the rest of the world!" This is an out right racist statement that wouldn't slip so casually as it did in 1981. Aside from that, the movie protrays Arab customs rather poorly, on one side, the director of the movie is keen on showing Arab rich people sitting on the ground and eating with their hands from one big plate (to somehoe portray primitivity) and forcing Fonda and Kristofferson to do the same (which doesn't happen in real life, they give guests plates and spoons if they need them), but the director makes a bigger slip of showing them shaking hands with Fonda and sitting right next to her in the dinner. That would not take place in the same societies that eat with their hands from the plates.Other omissions are plenty as well, portraying Arab countries and cities as vast areas of desert lands and tents doesn't portray what the Arab world looked like in 1981.From an acting stand point, Fonda is not too bad, but Kristofferson is awful. His "cowboy" acting style really misses the target in this one. The image of a banker who talks like a cowboy, behaves like a cowboy and tells his boss in the bank that if he doesn't hang up the phone he would smash his head.. This image is just not real. The way every night fall in the movie almost always ends with Fonda and Kristofferson making love is also not real for two people well over fourty as the movie portrays. So, you feel like the roles were written in a naive way. Not much attention was put into seeing how the characters fit into their perspective roles.Overall, this movie is not worth renting on video even, I would suggest waiting till its out there on TNT or TBS or something, in fact, it's not worth such a long review. (:-)))