Product: Rollerball (2002)
Rating: 1.0
John McTiernan -- yet another casualty of MTV style.
Several masters of action film have fallen prey to the undisciplined chaos of post-MTV, music-video-style editing and filmmaking. Tony Scott's Spy Game was one, but that film at least had the star power of Robert Redford and Brad Pitt to rescue it. Rollerball, on the other hand, has no redeeming features -- it is easily the worst film in John McTiernan's oeuvre.Which is sad, because McTiernan's resume is an astonishing one: Predator, Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Hunt for Red October. Even his worst film up to now, Last Action Hero, was better than the mess that is Rollerball. From the beginning, it's clear that this film has no interest whatsoever in characterization and pacing. It simply thrusts you into sequence after sequence of undisciplined chaos. Who is main character Jonathan Cross? Who is his buddy? You still won't have a clue 30 minutes into the film, and that's about 20 minutes too late. Too much loud music, messy dialogue editing, use of pointless and ugly jump cuts, and hyperactive camera work conspire to make Rollerball an even bigger migraine than Swordfish...and that's saying a lot. Handheld camera is an overrated device indeed, and in the case of Rollerball, there are so many characters onscreen at a time that you'll find yourself desperately straining to figure out who's saying what, who is the focal point, and what exactly is going on. The overall feeling is that this film was shot in pure handheld-coverage style, the filmmakers simply mashing all the actors together in a location and then shooting endless amounts of film, without preplanning as to how it would all cut together. Call this modern filmmaking, but I'd take the razor-precision of Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Top Gun any day.Matched with the stylistic anarchy is a cast of characters who mostly behave like animals or clowns. There's not a single recognizable human trait in these characters; their motivations and behaviour are outlandishly cartoonish, without the entertaining factor.What happened? I believe that action masters like McTiernan and Scott may have been led down this undesireable path by all the young Turks springing up from music-video backgrounds to do features. Unfortunately, as in the case of Rollerball, Swordfish, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Replacement Killers, this style is a true atrocity to action filmmaking. I hope Scott, McTiernan and others realize this and stick to their guns, or we can say goodbye to action movies.