Rollerball

One of the most forward looking science fiction tales of the 70's. Read full review

With a fantastic stunt team, a gamely macho star and some wonderful editing, Rollerball is so convincing, urban legend had it there were fatalities during the shoot. Read full review

Norman Jewison's sensational futuristic drama about a world of Corporate States stars James Caan in an excellent performance as a famed athlete who fights for his identity and free will. Read full review

Director Norman Jewison’s Rollerball remains a poignant and unusually prescient vision of our world as defined by Walmart and Exxon-Mobil. Read full review

The performances of Caan and Richardson are excellent, and the rollerball sequences are fast-paced and interesting. Read full review

The skate-rink action, which culminates in an apocalyptic death match, remains rabble-rousingly brutal. Read full review

Ultimately, Rollerball gets by on its sheer monolithic quality - an abundance of quantity. Despite indifferent direction and dire humour, it is well mounted and photographed. Read full review

Rollerball isn't a movie; it's a protest demonstration - producer-director Norman Jewison's feeble complaint about both the increasing brutality in professional sports and the increasing sterility of modern life. Trendy concerns, sure enough, but the movie's only contribution could well be the introduction of its brutal, eponymous game to an already sport-surfeited society. [07 July 1975, p.56]

It's got the smoothest, glossiest finish imaginable, but something inside it doesn't jell. [15 July 1988, p.26]

It's not funny at all and, not being funny, it becomes, instead, frivolous. Read full review

Lifeless, uninspired, and crammed with enough hints of intellectual consistency to give the socially conscious critical establishment shivers of excitement. Read full review