[7]
In this dystopian sci-fi tale, James Caan plays the star player in a global, corporate-sponsored game called ‘Rollerball’. It’s televised all over the world and very popular, combining elements of hockey, football, and basketball, in a bowl-shaped arena. Some players are on motorbikes and the rest wear roller skates. It’s dangerous — players get wounded or killed all the time. At the beginning of the film, Caan is told by his corporate overlord (John Houseman) that his time playing the game is up and he’s to announce his retirement. Caan doesn’t want to stop playing and he’s given no explanation why this decision has been made. So he launches an investigation into the corporation and the game and learns a grim fact about the life in futuristic 21st century society.
Rollerball is kitschy in a way all of yesterday’s visions of tomorrow are. The overall spartan production design creates a suitably cold atmosphere, though the test of time proves some individual props and set dressing laughable (the film is 50 years old and takes place roughly today). It’s austere enough to make an impression, bolstered at times by heavy pipe organ music in the score. The film has a solid, if not entirely original, sci-fi concept at its core. Even though James Caan is very good as our conflicted renegade hero, his character arc doesn’t sustain the film’s two-hour run time. Nor does the plot.
Even though the film becomes predictable after the midpoint and outwears its welcome by about twenty minutes, it works whenever Caan is in close-up. He carries this movie like no other in his filmography, and not by the bravado for which he’s famous, but for uncommon restraint. Oscar-winning Houseman (The Paper Chase) is cast to type, reliably cold and condescending. No other cast members have as much to do, but they certainly carry their weight – particularly Maud Adams as one of Caan’s past lovers, Moses Gunn as his friend and private detective of sorts, and John Beck as a fellow player who lands in a coma after a particularly brutal game. Sir Ralph Richardson (Greystoke) brings a dash of dark humor in a cameo appearance.
Directed by Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night, Moonstruck), with cinematography by Douglas Slocombe (Raiders of the Lost Ark).