Rollercoaster | | Cast : | George Segal, Richard Widmark, Timothy Bottoms | | Director : | James Goldstone | | Studio : | Universal Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | June 17, 1977 | | DVD Released Date : | January 06, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | November 28, 2004 | | Summary | An excellent cat and mouse thriller. | Content
 | A young man (Timothy Bottoms) sabotages amusement park rides in an attempt to extort money from their corporate owners. Standards and Safety Inspector Harry Caulder (George Segal) - who inspected the first ride to fall victim to the young man - understands that the extortionist should not be underestimated. His warning falls on deaf ears, save for the young man, who ropes Caulder into helping him. Rollercoaster is one of my favorite suspense films from the seventies, thanks in large part to solid (albeit workmanlike) direction by James Goldstone and a witty, intelligent script by Richard Levinson and William Link. The cast delivers fine performances as well. Highly recommended. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 03, 2004 | | Summary | Ride it...in Sensurround! | Content
| Based on the title, I had originally thought Rollercoaster (1977) was going to be a disaster type movie that were popular in the 70's like Airport (1970), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), or The Towering Inferno (1974), but it turned out to be something a lot different. I guess it was for the best, as a film about a rollercoaster that was running out of control, throwing stars of old off at various points, probably wouldn't have worked too well and would have been like scraping the bottom of the disaster-venue barrel.
The film stars George Segal as Harry Caulder, a government safety inspector who's thrown into a situation having to deal with a terrorist (Timothy Bottoms) bent on blowing up rollercoasters, harming and killing innocent amusement park patrons unless his demands are met. Also in the film are Richard Widmark as federal agent Hoyt, Henry Fonda as Caulder's boss (Fonda appears for like a total of five minutes in two or three scenes...long enough to pick up a check, I suppose), Susan Strassberg as Caulder's girlfriend, and a teenagish Helen Hunt as Caulder's daughter.
The film wastes very little time as Bottom's character strikes, blowing up part of the track on a large rollercoaster. The cars crash, people die horribly, and Caulder is called in...Apparently, he had just inspected this ride a few months prior, and now this accident and the subsequent deaths has everyone asking, "What happened?" No one, it seems, has bother to do a thorough inspection of the damaged track, otherwise they would have noticed it had been blasted apart, and everyone is assuming it a just an accident due to equipment failure or some such thing. I would suspect the insurance company would want to have had this done before they paid out any monies, but what the heck do I know? Anyway, another accident happens at another park, and Caulder gets wind of a meeting between the big wigs of five different amusement parks all over the country, and decides to try and attend. During the meeting, they learn the motive behind the attacks, and also learn of the terms required by the terrorist in order for him to stop. Since attacks by the same person happened in different states, the feds (Widmark) are called in, but the terrorist has taken a shine to Caulder, and requests he be involved in the events soon to follow. Will the terrorists' demands be met? Or will he strike again? What exactly is his deal? Does he just hate rollercoasters, or amusement parks in general?
The film wasn't bad. As I said, this isn't a disaster movie, but more of a game of cat and mouse, with the feds chasing Bottoms' character, trying to determine his next move. Caulder, who managed to piece together a number of elements early on, get caught up in the proceedings, having to play the terrorists' games hoping to avoid any future tragedies. Other than the somewhat gruesome scenes (which were actually toned down prior to release) at the beginning, this film just had a strong feel of a television production to me. There was an effort to try and create a level of suspense, in the sense of a Hitchcock film, but the predictability overwhelmed this more often than not, along with a few glaring plot holes, stereotypical characters, and contrived plot devices. And the music...I like Lalo Schifrin, but I found the music that accompanied Bottoms' character, especially when he was getting ready to do evil things, to become very annoying. The rollercoaster photography was nice, and I am sure it played much better on the big screen, and the actors were all competent in their roles.
Presented here is a nice looking wide screen print, although not without some very minor speckling on the picture in one or two parts. It's noteworthy to mention the film was released in Sensurround, a process that `augmented the violent action on screen by intense waves of high decibel sound, enough, in some documented cases, to crack ribs.' according to Haliwell's Film Companion. The gimmick never really caught on as it often disrupted films being show in adjoining theaters, causing complaints to theater managers who decided it just wasn't worth the trouble. Only two other films, Earthquake (1974) and Midway (1976) also used the process before it was discontinued. Special features include production notes, bios, a trailer, and some web links. While predictable, Rollercoaster was not a bad ride, although at a run time of two hours, it could have been shortened a little bit, adding a little more quickness to the pacing. Oh yeah, look for a cameo by Steve Guttenberg around 82 minutes into the film, as Federal Agent #3. Don't blink, or you'll miss it.
Cookieman108 |
| Rating | | | Date | February 29, 2004 | | Summary | a very exciting movie | Content
| this is one of my favorite movies. it was loaded with excitement. if you like rollercoasters than this is the one to buy. a very good cast and a very good movie. there's only one other one that i will like to get that is almost close to this one and that one is THE DEATH OF OCEANVIEW PARK. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 17, 2003 | | Summary | magic mountain here i come | Content
| this was a great movie. a whole great ending taken place at six flags magic mountain. i wan't to go there too. i only been at six flags great adventure 35 times. but i was never at magic mountain. national lampoon's vacation was taken at magic mountain also and called it wally world. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 26, 2003 | | Summary | In "Rollercoaster" no one can hear you screm over the others | Content
| Okay, nobody ever thought it was really safe to get on the rollercoaster, but a mysterious master criminal (Timothy Bottoms) - who knows a thing or two about electronics, demolitions and engineering - has his own ideas for adding chills. Planting remote control bombs on tracks - precisely at the spot where the coaster goes fastest - he derails them in a series of spectacular and deadly "accidents". At first written off as accidents, the bomber moves from smaller parks to larger ones with flashier rides and richer owners. Only intrepid insurance investigator Harry Calder (George Segal) from LA spots an obvious pattern and suspects terrorism while the incidents are first written off as accidental tragedies. Worming his way into a meeting of the amusement park CEO's, Calder attracts the attention of the FBI, and then the mystery man himself. Calder is maverick, not a team player - he's not afraid to call it like it is or follow any lead to the ends of the world, but in Bottoms's character, Harry's met his match. The bomber turns Harry into a reluctant participant of the crime, having him collect the extortion money from the park owners and deposit it on a dead drop area in the middle of a targeted amusement park. In an elaborate sequence, and communicating with Harry over a walkie-talkie, the bomber sends Harry on an elaborate wild-goose chase in which he's forced to ride every ride while carrying the money and what may be a bomb. As a thriller, "Rollercoaster" is a mixed bag. The script posits Bottoms's mystery man as a cool extortionist - but the technical details of his mastery are glossed over. Also, in a film about rollercoasters, there's nary a mention about the science behind them. There's so little care about the engineering behind them that machines in this movie raise little if any chills whether in their designed role to scare people or thier scripted role in which they actually kill people. This was probably just TV-movie of the week fodder for the late 1970's. Still it's irresistible today mostly because it is a sort of time capsule for big-budget disaster movies from the period, featuring established big-name stars in meaningless and small parts (Henry Fonda has a bit part as George Segal's boss in a scene where we learn that Harry isn't a team player; Richard Widmark plays the head FBI investigator, an anonymous part that allows him to be cordial enough at first when he thinks he'll never have to deal with Segal's character, and appropriately annoyed when that proves impossible; Helen Hunt plays Harry's daughter in a part that gives no hint to her future fame). With the ludicrous 70's fashions, the rotary phones and the cars and the flick is funnier than scary. Add in the unintended irony of cinematography that almost looks like a travelogue for parks that nobody would want to visit after watching this movie, and "Rollercoaster" is an absurd treat. At its heart, the film is paced like a rollercoaster - slow only to build up to the scary parts (usually when the mystery man worms his way onto the scene). This is a perfect rental. |
|
