ROLLOVER (1981: Dir. Alan J. Pakula)
The early Eighties are now acknowledged as the crucible for unbridled laissez-faire capitalism but few filmmakers at that time were sounding warning bells about the potential for economic disaster. With this film, director Alan J. Pakula, who had already flown the flag for crusading liberal journalism in The Parallax View (1974) and All The President's Men (1976), bravely took on the corporate elite and their plutocratic excesses, presaging their earliest efforts to re-shape world monetary markets into the juggernauts of de-regulated greed they would eventually become. Jane Fonda stars in her third and final lead performance for Pakula following her Oscar winning performance as the jaded hooker in Klute (1971), followed by her hard-bitten Depression era rancher in Comes A Horseman (1978). For Rollover, Pakula once again harnesses Fonda's beautiful but brittle screen persona, casting her as a wealthy widow who falls into love and business with a stylish financier played by singer/songwriter and former Rhodes scholar Kris Kristofferson. Their frightening foray into the hazardous battleground of international banking and high finance makes for an unsettling expose of the precarious system which we all depend on. The fact that the public chose not to heed these warnings left this unpopular anti-capitalist thriller a pariah at the box office, despite its fascinating and prophetic prediction of a world financial meltdown. DVD REGION 1 & 2
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