Rollover

Pakula again uses big-name stars to deliver a political message. This time around Fonda and Kristofferson are involved in the world of high finance that teeters on the brink of disaster when Arab countries threaten to pull their money from US banks instead of letting it "roll over."

Disconcerting in its kaleidoscopic shifts in tone, it's nevertheless too absorbing simply to dismiss.

Miss Fonda has thought to make a thriller out of that unthrilling process. [12 Dec 1981]

Although elegantly appointed and possessed of a provocative theme, Rollover is a fundamentally disappointing political-romantic thriller [from a story by David Shaber, Howard Kohn and David Weir] set in the rarified world of international high finance.

The movie insists that the fate of the world hangs on the actions of these people. If you buy that, you'll buy anything. [11 Dec 1981, p.31]

Lacking the necessary gusto and sexual chemistry, Rollover is doomed by an excess of huffing and puffing...Despite posh accessories and surroundings, Jane Fonda and leading man Kris Kristofferson seem oddly haggard as well as mismatched -- two rawboned impostors who can't believe in themselves as a dynamic, voluptuous erotic duo. Their skepticism is well-founded. [11 Dec 1981, p.C3]

The dramatic possibilities of the material are weak at best, and its satirical underpinnings are nowhere to be found. As for the characters, they are either deeply unsympathetic or, when they resort to technical jargon for very long periods of time, incomprehensible.