Rollerball

A science fiction film set in the near future. There are no countries. The world is run by a few large corporations and war, poverty and hunger have been abolished. Everything people need is provided. There is one mass entertainment: Rollerball. Players on skates, motorcycles and a metal ball; the rules are hard and death is ordinary. The game has a purpose and it is said openly: to show that individual effort is meaningless. Nobody should be able to win alone. Jonathan E. is the best in that game. He has played for years, has survived and the crowd knows him. The corporation wants him to retire. No reason is given, but it is plain: one player standing out this far disproves the system's own rule. Jonathan refuses. The rules then start to change: first the penalty times are removed, then substitutions, finally the time limit. The matter at the centre is not violence but how a system produces its own hero and then tries to be rid of him. James Caan plays Jonathan and John Houseman the executive. Norman Jewison directed. The game scenes were shot on real skates with stunt performers; several were injured during filming. An important production for anyone who likes the dystopias of the 1970s. For a viewer expecting action, the sections between the games are slow and built on talk.