Comfortable and Furious

Rollerball

Directed by John McTiernan

Originally Written by William Harrison

Rewritten by Larry Ferguson and John Pogue

Starring
– Chris Klein as Jonathan Cross
– Jean Reno as Petrovich
– LL Cool J as Marcus Ridley
– Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as The Head of Mensa


Erich doesn’t even mention the original [EDITOR’S NOTE: The Ruthless review of this movie  is lost in the mists of time]

No offense to Ron Jeremy

Especially with him now being part of team Ruthless, but even he’s never been in a movie with this much sucking in it. The acting sucks in Roller Ball, which pretty much goes without saying if you look at the cast. If you listen to the commentary track on Election you’ll learn that Chris Klein was just some kid in Omaha who got a supremely luck break. I’m glad for him and he did the smart thing by grabbing some cash in medium budget flicks like this one, but I think he’s going to be co-staring with Brian Bozworth in the near future. Also, LL Cool J is in the film.

The story, such as there is, sucks. There are smaller points of suckiness. Here’s a short list. They wanted to have women rollerballers because they look sexy. Instead of making special positions for women on the teams, the filmmakers just pretend that women and men had the same athletic abilities. The ratings of a game are monitored as it happens and fluctuate by a factor of four or five depending on what’s happening in the game.

Think about that one for a moment. When the bad guys are trying to get two good guys on a motorcycle, they use a mortar. A shell hits the bike – by some stroke of luck, both men are ok. Then the evil ones pull out the precision sniper rifle that’s been sitting
there the whole time and finishes one of the good guys off. The two men on the run are wealthy, American celebrities trying to get out of an Eastern European country by racing for the boarder at night rather than just heading for the American consulate. Maybe there isn’t an American consulate you say?

Well, I know there is because they mention it during the chase. They don’t talk about why they can’t go there, they just mention it. There’s just tons of shit like that. If everyone else on the set was so oblivious, they should have just given the craft service
guy, or the fluffer or someone an extra $20 bucks every time he pointed out a glaring absurdity to McTieran (Director). Granted, it would have cost like a hundred grand, but it would have been worth it.

The broader plot sucks. People run around for an hour or so, then Keanu
Jr. (Klein) beats up the evil Rollerball boss, which inspires a revolution. No kidding.

The direction sucks. When Klein beats up the rollerboss, he jumps through the glass separating the players from the audience and smashes into the boss. There are two bodyguards. One reaches for his piece as though he had advanced Parkinson’s and Klein throws the ball at him, which puts him out of commission. While this is happening, the other guard, who is about 15 feet away from Klein has been going for his piece as though he has advanced rigor mortis. Still, it looks pretty clear that he’s going to get it out in time to cap Klein. Then, I swear to God, there is a cut in the film and Klein is on top of the bodyguard but the bodyguard hasn’t moved.

The cinematography isn’t good, although it actually blows more than sucks and the music is pretty weak, although Slipknot are in the film and they are better than most bands that wind up in films. Which isn’t to say I own any of their albums or anything, they’re just better than Blink-182.  The only thing good about this film was the probably catering. I’ve been on sets for some really, really low budget films and even those
are catered like mafia weddings.

DVD Extra

This and that. There is a Rob Zombie video. If that isn’t enough make you happy, someone from the studio will come to your house and fart in your face.


Ruthless Ratings

Note: The “Ruthless Hacking Penalty” has been enacted where as all scores are one full point lower because a talentless rapper has once again stolen a role from a decent hard
working black actor. Like Eddie Griffin or Orlando Jones. . . My God,
we’re all doomed!

  • Overall: .5
  • Direction: 1
  • Acting: 2
  • Story: 0
  • DVD Extras: 3
  • Re-watchability: No

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