Das Rollover-Komplott

This was a 1981 movie Jane Fonda "got made" after her exploration of the dangers of nuclear power in the "China Syndrome" back in 1979. She was driving to tell the story of real money - gold and how OTHER parts of the world value gold as real money while the Americans don't understand it. (Note: And it's not about Jane. I don't even like Jane Fonda...her politics aren't supposed to be in the acting on the screen. At some point a movie - or any art - is not about the artist's personality, it's about what's on the page or the score or on the screen.)

The plot line is about "outsiders" not rolling over their CDs in American banks and buying gold...and what the loss of those foreign investments means to the financial establishment in New York. I'll admit the acting and the romance are not top notch. So what? This movie was a "financial thriller" and there just ain't many of these movies made. Movies need bank financing, and banks usually won't finance anything that makes them look bad or stupid. (They show "I'ts a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart on TV only once a year now because it shows "run on the bank" at the Bailey Savings and Loan - not something the financial establishment wants Americans to even think about.) I'm a Certified Financial Planner and I recommend this movie in my classes along with Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" and "Boiler Room" as movies that shed light on the financial world in which we live today. In 2005, it's even more important for people to understand the relationships between gold and paper money as the cycle from the 1970's reasserts itself.

And get over the Arab slights in the movie. They weren't the point back in 1981 and they aren't the point now. A lack of political correctness is not a reason to avoid this movie.

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.

Director Alan J. Pakula has range ("All the President's Men," "Presumed Innocent," "The Pelican Brief"), but this is Hollywood Formula 1.0 with two bankable stars making whoopee: the poster is proof. It's too bad, because "Rollover" aims to be a courageous look at the potentially apocalyptic dangers of the global money markets. I am not even sure I agree with Sodie's review, "A Marxist interpretation" (21 Aug 1999), but he does justice to the subject, which is one that Pakula, Fonda (who made the similarly apocalyptic "China Syndrome" two years earlier), and probably the writers and Kristofferson took seriously, or tried to.

Unfortunately, Wall Street shenanigans are secondary to bedroom shenanigans, which is just one of the bad decisions driven by box-office tenets. Attention is lavished on posh settings and Fonda's gowns, while the plot gets its fuel from dramatic close-ups of the words "Account Number 21214" on documents. Turns out, it's a secret fund that could undermine the global economy. From what I gathered, billions of dollars (mostly from OPEC) were diverted to 21214 and/or converted to gold in an epochal fraud masterminded by one powerful American banker (Hume Cronyn) who makes Bernie Madoff look like Clyde Barrow.

Fonda is solid in her role, and strong supporting actors (Cronyn, Josef Sommer, Bob Gunton, Ron Frazier) do their best to buttress Kristofferson, but he was richly deserving of his Razzie nomination (a double: he was in "Heaven's Gate" that year, too). His performance is utter monotony, with little change of expression and none of voice. Equally bad is the musical score by Michael Small, never nominated for any award ever, and no wonder.

"Rollover" is so stuck in the past that it's almost forgotten. Movies moved on. Since its release in 1981, a raft of far superior movies about Wall Street followed, including Margin Call, The Big Short, Wall Street, The Wolf of Wall Street, Equity, Arbitrage, and Dumb Money-- and not one of them is a love story.

Jane Fonda was a movie star. She retired to marry an industrialist who has just been murdered. She takes over a Wall Street bank with the aid of Kris Kristofferson, who becomes her lover. Everything seems hunky-dory, until each discovers evidence oil-money-rich Arabs are abandoning the international money system in favor of gold. This threatens the entire world.

Alan Pakula's movie is, as usual, impeccably directed, with a fine cast that includes Hume Cronyn and Bob Gunton as shadowy, threatening bankers. I found it curiously uninvolving, probably because this seems well-trod territory in terms of story telling, and the issues it covers, although pressing at the time, have receded I also thought the scenes in the bank, filled with then-current computers and draft printers, darkly lit to serve the paranoia, more curious than unsettling.

Some movie may serve to encapsulate a moment. This can offer a fascinating glimpse into a dead world. Here, it results in a movie which doesn't serve more than the moment.