deathadder-13878 A young psycho demolitions expert (Timothy Bottoms) threatens to wreak havoc at amusement parks across America until the proper authorities pay him and leave him alone. Pursuing him is a middle-aged safety inspector bureaucrat (George Segal), who's going through various mid-life crises like trying to quite smoking, visitations with his teen daughter (Helen Hunt) following a divorce, starting a new relationship, and so forth. Also along for the ride are various corporate/government/police officials who naturally often clash over how to best catch the bomber.The movie starts well enough, with Bottoms slickly planting a bomb on a roller coaster in broad daylight, then biding his time until nightfall when he remotely detonates the charge and sends derailed patrons to their doom. The photography and editing generate some good thrills, and the actors, minor and major, do their parts well.Now, with these kinds of movies, the real key is the interplay between the nominal good guys (the authorities, usually) and the bad guys. As Segal catches on to Bottoms and then has several conversations with him, it's all pretty involving. Bottoms acts very terse and businesslike, conveying the moral and emotional vacuity of a psychopath, while Segal becomes a wry and incisive analyst trying to crack a terrorist whose true motives are nearly as inscrutable as his emotions. The police think Segal a cocky amateur, but he turns out to be the better judge of criminal character.Less interesting is the bickering between aging law enforcement leader Richard Widmark and Segal. Widmark seems like a stodgy bully, outside of a few begrudging compliments to Segal. Perhaps the film-makers felt that since the psycho was in his late 20's it made it necessary to caricature the oldest character into a gruff scold, the better to pander to 70's Boomers..Segal deduces the location of the next attack, and we're left in suspense about several things. Is there a bomb? Where is it? Will they find it? Will they disarm it, before it's too late? Will they catch the perp? This isn't really a disaster movie, as it lacks the scope or spectacle. Had they wanted to, they could've upped these things with more bombings. Overall, though, the emphasis is on character interaction more than well, action. Since Segal and Bottoms make for an effective fire and ice pairing, that was the right choice to make.Why not a better rating? The movie definitely drags at times; there really isn't enough scale or plot or character depth to justify the running time. The movie wasn't a big hit, and that's probably because the marketing made it seem more epic than it is. And while the acting is good enough, only Segal and Bottoms really give something for the viewer to latch on to. A very young Helen Hunt has some presence, but her character is thankless, as are the women in Segal's life; would Dirty Harry be a better movie if the movie told us about his family? The conclusion has some things worth noting. Craig Wasson appears as an amiable "hippie boy" (that's his credit), and though he only gets about a half-dozen lines, his talent still shines through. A quasi New Wave/punk band named Sparks plays at Magic Mountain, and while their music isn't that hummable, it does have a pretty wild energy for it's time, and one particularly tensely rhythmic song bridge is used to convey the anxiety of the bomb defusing scene.

ma-cortes Thrilling and entertaining catastrophe movie with some clichés and stereotypes containing enjoyable performances from George Segal and Richard Widmark ; dealing with a psychotic person who plans a massive killing spree in amusement parks . Police and FBI are called in to investigate and trace the crimes to a young man (Timothy Bottoms) , as this is a race against time and terror . They are pursuing a nameless, faceless man through America's greatest amusement park . This disaster movie blends action , intrigue , breathtaking spectacle, suspense and emotional byplay . ¨Rollercoaster¨ was a successful film that grossed at box office . The FBI led by superior officer named Hoyt (Richard Widmark) and helped by technical supervisor Calder (George Segal) learn of the plot and rush to the scene , as the psychopath blackmails a whole conglomerate of companies for a million dollars . Still , they may be too late , as an all-star cast finds itself lined up in the sights of a madman . They spend most of their time devising various ways for avoid to psychopath carries out his aims : a massive killing spree in parks and rollercoasters especially . As our heroes get stuck in the before it blows up and when slaughter takes place they go into action ; as they pay tribute to policemen . There takes place a struggle between two forces , the cops along with FBI and the sinister assassin and ultimately erupts when the crowd turns almost effortlessly and devours itself in a climax of panic . Exciting film that packs thrills , noisy action , overwhelming scenes , suspense , emotion and turns out to be pretty entertaining . This formula intrigue movie belongs to catastrophe genre of the 70s , being the undisputed king , ¨The towering inferno¨ along with ¨Earthquake¨ , ¨Two minutes warning¨ and many others ; this formula disaster movie was widely developed by Irwin Allen , previously winner of numerous Oscars for ¨Poseidon¨ until the failures as ¨Beyond Poseidon¨, ¨Swarm¨ and ¨When the time ran out¨ . ¨Rollercoaster¨ results to be an intriguing and thrilling film . Filmed at the height of the disaster genre from the 7os , this entry in the spectacular series profits of a strong acting by starring trio George Segal , Richadd Widmark and Henry Fonda . Good performance by Timothy Bottoms , the filmmakers later decided that the movie was more suspenseful if the motive behind the Young Man's actions were never known, as well as keeping the audience from sympathizing with the Young Man's situation . Succeeds in combining various talented actors , an all star cast came together that tie for film's top casting honors ; furthermore a top-notch secondary casting such as Harry Guardino , Susan Strasberg , William Prince , Robert Quarry and a teenager Helen Hunt and Craig Wasson , Steve Guttenberg's first film . Furthermore , most of the actors portraying police officials in the film were actual police officers from the surrounding area . And for the first time, you are experiencing the most sensational rides of our time, to be presented in "Sensurround", a special low-frequency bass speaker setup consisting of four huge speakers loaned by distributors to select theaters showing the film , this system was employed only during certain sequences of the film, and was so powerful that it actually cracked plaster at some movie theaters. "Sensurround" was employed in only three other films released by Universal: Earthquake, Midway, and the theatrical release of Battlestar Galactica .Colorful and gripping photography in Panavision by David Walsh , including persistent high-angle shots , subjective camera-work and use of long lenses . Some of the amusement park scenes were shot at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia, just north of Richmond and also partially filmed at Ocean View Park in Virginia (including the destruction of the roller-coaster) and the roller coaster featured in the main climax of the movie is the Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, CA and was the first to feature a complete 360-degree vertical loop . Intriguing and thrilling score by Lalo Schifrin in his usual style . This big-budgeted disaster movie was professionally directed by James Goldstone , an ordinary TV movies director and subsequently made another catastrophe film , the disastrous ¨When time ran out¨ . Rating : Good and entertaining , it's a fairly watchable disaster movie.

bkoganbing Roller-coaster if seen should be seen in a specially equipped theater rigged for Sensurround. I didn't see this in theater, but I did see Earthquake and I still remember both seeing Earthquake and later going to the same multiplex cinema seeing another feature and hearing the Earthquake noises from the adjoining screening room. It just wasn't the same thing when I later saw Earthquake on television. Nor was it the same seeing a DVD of Roller-coaster.Timothy Bottoms plays the young genius at electronics and explosives who has figured out that the amusement park industry is very unsecure and impossible to secure as a target for terrorism. After causing a couple of accidents where lives were lost, Bottoms blackmails several park owners.On one of those accidents the safety engineer George Segal gets a dressing down on his dereliction of duty and that sends him on a mission. For a guy who hasn't any training in this field, Segal proves to be a remarkable sleuth who matches FBI guy Richard Widmark in this field.Bottoms kind of bonds with Segal in the same way that Scorpio bonded with Dirty Harry and it ends just about the same way.Roller-coaster and other high speed amusement rides are thrilling in and of themselves, adding the possibility of explosion does heighten the tension in Roller-coaster.It's an interesting film premise and Roller-coaster does provide some nice entertainment and it's a catalog of Seventies fashions.

Michael_Elliott Roller-coaster (1977) ** (out of 4) The disaster genre was certainly running on fumes by the time this thing struck but I'd say this has a lot more in common with JAWS. A nut case (Timothy Bottoms) blows up a roller coaster ride and then blackmails the park owners for a million dollars. He forces a inspector (George Segal) to go along with the ride but after a detective (Richard Widmark) double crosses him, the psychopath picks out another park to blow up. There's barely enough plot here to fill up a TV episode so stretching it out to two-hours was just crazy because after the first deadly ride nothing happens for the rest of the film. A lot of the problem is due to the screenplay but director Goldstone doesn't do the film much justice either as there's no suspense ever built up, which is the same thing that happened to the director's next film, the real disaster WHEN TIME RAN OUT. Back to this film, I'm really not sure what they were thinking making this thing so long unless there was some unwritten rule that any disaster film had to run extra long. At the start of the film it seemed like the screenwriters were going to do something smart and that is do a JAWS on us. In that film, they gave us something everyone like (water) and made us scared of it. This film starts off by showing why people love roller coasters but then it tries to make us scared by showing bodies being broken apart after the first accident. This is all good but then the movie continues and it just goes downhill. There's really not much you can do with a plot like this because rides are either going to blow up or they're not. Here, they don't. We get a long cat and mouse game at an amusement park as Bottoms has Segal walking all over the place to try and get away from the police. This sequence feels close to an hour and not one second of it contains any suspense. The film tacks on an extra ending with the possibility of another bomb being on yet another ride but again we get no suspense. By the time the final act comes along I was struggling to stay away. The one thing the film does offer are some fun performances with Segal doing a very good job in the lead. The screenplay doesn't offer him too much development but the actor keeps thing alive with the fun performance. Widmark is also pretty good in his role and gets to play off that classic attitude in a few nice scenes. Bottoms isn't the greatest villain in history but his calm attitude works. Henry Fonda is kind enough to show and pick up a paycheck. Look quick for Helen Hunt and Steve Guttenberg. One could debate the importance of the 70s disaster flicks but there's no doubt that as the decade went along they got a lot worse. This one here isn't as bad as THE SWARM or WHEN TIME RAN OUT but at the same time there's not enough here to make it worth wasting two hours of your life.