‘Rollercoaster’ or — Getting Onboard?

I hadn’t seen ‘Rollercoaster’ (1977) since I was very young, so young that all I could remember about it was that it starred George Segal, was about a guy blowing up rollercoasters and that I had found it hysterical that the actor playing the bad guy was called Timothy Bottoms. Yes, I was that young and immature. Since then ‘Rollercoaster’ seemed to fizzle out of existence leaving me to believe it might be a decidedly average film at best so I kept my expectations low revisiting it last night. And is better than average? Did it meet my expectations? The answer to both is — only just, but that’s a bigger compliment that might initially appear.

‘Rollercoaster’ has a daft but oddly unnerving premise — an unnamed young man (Timothy Bottoms) is blowing up rollercoaster rides with no apparent motive. After blowing up a rollercoaster ride and killing plenty of people he calls the authorities and demands money, but there’s the feeling of possibly another, unspoken, reason behind it all. Rollercoaster safety inspector Harry Calder (George Segal) is called in to help track the terrorist down and Harry soon finds himself the one tasked with both delivering the extortion money and being the one on the other end of the line talking to the crazy bomber.

And so follows a game of cat-and-mouse as Calder attempts to stop this maniac before he can cause any more amusement park mayhem.

It all seems rather generic, which is sort of is, especially when Bottoms is making Segal run around via walkie-talkie in order to throw off his FBI tail with it playing out very much like a less exciting version of the similar sequence between Scorpio and Harry Callahan in ‘Dirty Harry’ (1971). Also, what with all the aging, famous film stars popping up (Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, etc) and its 70’s disaster vibe going on the film feels, at times, like it’s suddenly going to turn into ‘Airplane!’ (1980). There’s a lot that could, potentially, throw ‘Rollercoaster’ off the rails.

But you know what — ‘Rollercoaster’s not half bad. I mean, it’s not great but it’s better than average (just) and held up better than I expected (just). It’s rather nicely shot for one thing, the rollercoasters looming up against clear, blue skies looking particularly nice and there are some really exciting rollercoaster POV shots with the camera careening around the bends and down the plunges. It’s also well edited, especially during the opening disaster sequence which is surprisingly effective and well staged.

The script is by Richard Levinson and William Link, creators of ‘Columbo’, so the dialogue is sharp and the characters feel suitably fleshed out and well defined. The acting ranges from good (Segal and Bottoms) to phoned-in (Henry Fonda) and the interplay between Bottoms’ bomber and Segal’s inspector is handled well. Lalo Schifrin helps keep things moving along with a carnivalesque score that compliments the visuals.

So ‘Rollercoaster’ is a prime example of a slightly above average movie but one where that slight rise in quality ends up meaning a lot. And I LOVE it when a movie does that, when I find a movie slightly above average or slightly better than expected but that almost imperceptible sliver of a difference, one which should have an almost negligible effect, elevates it just enough to make quite a significant improvement. It’s that slight nudge needed to get fully onboard, to become fully immersed and lose yourself in it all. That happened to me and I ended up having quite a bit of fun with the film.

So yeah, ‘Rollercoaster’s not that bad, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.