Rollerball (Full Lenth Film)

(1975) An American dystopian fiction film directed by Norman Jewison from a screenplay by William Harrison, who adapted his own short story "Roller Ball Murder", which first appeared in 1973 in Esquire magazine.

In the film, the world of 2018 is a global corporate state, containing entities such as the Energy Corporation, a global energy monopoly based in Houston which deals with nominally-peer corporations controlling access to all transport, luxury, housing, communication, and food on a global basis.

The film's title is the name of a violent, globally popular sport around which the events of the film take place. It is similar to Roller Derby in that two teams clad in body armor skate on roller skates (some instead ride on motorcycles) around a banked, circular track. There, however, the similarity ends. The object of the game is to score points by the offensive team (the team in possession of the ball) throwing a softball-sized steel ball into the goal, which is a magnetic, cone-shaped area inset into the wall of the arena. The team without possession of the ball is defensive and acts to prevent scoring. It is a full-contact sport in which players have considerable leeway to attack opposing players in order to take or maintain possession of the ball and to score points (in the overpopulated world of the original short story, the object of the game is to kill off the other players). In addition, each team has three players who ride motorcycles to which teammates can latch on and be towed. The player in possession of the ball must hold it in plain view at all times.

Rollerball teams, named after the cities in which they are based, are owned by the various global corporations. Energy Corporation sponsors the Houston team. The game is a substitute for all current team sports and for warfare. While its ostensible purpose is entertainment, Mr. Bartholomew, a high-level executive of the Energy Corporation, describes it as a sport designed to show the futility of individual effort.

Among the filming locations used was the Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle as arena, the then-new BMW Headquarters and Museum buildings in Munich, Germany, appearing as the headquarter buildings of Energy Corporation and at the Olympiapark, Munich.

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  Entertainment

[welshnick300365]

dont wast your time. The remake was terrible.

[1986SSMONTECARLO]

Cult Fucking Classic!!!

[eldavid809]

This movie suck

[ultimtdisc]

Spoken like a gentleman. ;-)

[DSDMovies]

I thought the exact opposite. Ponderous, pretentious, and gratuitously long. It's not timeless; it's a time capsule, a period piece that shows just how far up its own arse it's posible to get when you're recovering from the 60s and wondering what the hell anything is about anyway. It couldn't be any more 70s.

[PRenard2012]

When you are right you are right.... I stand corrected... the companies are not government owned in the movie..

[ultimtdisc]

Obama? You're kinda bassackwards, aintchya? Typical rightie. Where in the movie does it say these are government owned companies? It's actually the reverse, where the companies are the government. More up ol' Mittens alley.

[ultimtdisc]

Nancy Bleier. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a career. Definitely the hottest of the Rollerball Girls.

[KOOLMENFROMUSA]

this film is one of the worst sports films ever made. it never really shows the sport spirit ..only greed. too one sided to be a great film. even charleton heston ,"Number One "was better, about an old jock who didn't want to give up the limelight.spending too much money on a jock film ruins it, it's best to be small and without too much special effects or familar faces.

[chthonios]

One of the great classics.

[throb9]

who's the hot librarian at 36:30? she looks very familiar

[bjroberts65]

I must agree!!!