Das Rollover-Komplott

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.

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.

An over valued dollar, the system on the brink, the big bankers and their government stooges have gone too far. Sound familiar? The previous poster attributes the financial melt down in the movie to capitalism. Actually, the movie doesn't touched at all on the causes of the system breakdown. But it is not capitalism, but government interference in the market which would cause such a melt down. But it is fun to see central banking get its just reward, and to see gold emerge a winner.

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.

I have not brushed up on my financial lingo, so a lot of the Wall Street talk went over my head. It might be possible I'm too dumb to fully "get" this movie. That being said, can I at least have interesting characters to fear for and a good deal of suspense when I'm watching a thriller?

The two leads are like figures from a Sidney Sheldon potboiler: sexy and sassy, but otherwise little more than blow-up dolls. The love scenes are hilariously cheesy and the suspense is basically nil. The latter is a shock considering this was directed by Alan J. Pakula, who made some of the greatest thrillers of the 1970s: KLUTE, THE PARALLAX VIEW, and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. Those were phenomenal movies. Most importantly, you could follow them. ROLLOVER is way harder to follow if you aren't sure what the characters are talking about and to be honest, even after reading a synopsis to digest what was going on, I found I didn't really care.