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Very well executed

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

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.

"Rollercoaster" released in 1977, was a great suspense film, that unfortunately, suffered from a bad marketing campaign. Coming out in the wake of the "Disaster Flicks" sub-genre that was all the rage in Hollywood in the 70′s, movie goers attending "Rollercoaster" expecting to see yet another over the top epic in which Hollywood B- list actors are picked off one by one on a regular basis in the midst of some disaster or other might have left the theater feeling cheated. But that's not the kind of film "Rollercoaster" is, and the fact that it wasn't as well received or as successful as it should have been is a shame. Because "Rollercoaster" is a crackling good suspense story concerning an insane but smart bomber, the amusement park rides he destroys, taking lives down with it, and the one man who knows how he thinks and is the only one who can stop him. This is the stuff great action films today are made of. Films like "Speed" and other "mad bomber" epics owe a great debt to "Rollercoaster" for laying the "tracks", (see what I did there?) for similar films like it in the future. For reasons never explained, a young psychopath, played by Timothy Bottoms sets about rigging roller coaster rides at various amusement parks in America with home made explosives. The results are obviously deadly, and he soon issues an ultimatum to all the owners of the major amusement parks in the country: Pay up, or they will continue to see how "vulnerable" (as he puts it) they are to people like him. The hero of this film is Harry Calder, (George Segal) a California safety inspector, under whose jurisdiction the first roller-coaster bomb is deployed. Even though Calder wants no part of these proceedings, he has the intuition to identify the modus operandi of Bottoms' character, known only in the credits as "The Young Man". Calder finds himself clashing on a regular basis, not with "The Young Man", but with a senior agent of the FBI, Agent Hoyt, played here with the usual gusto of Richard Widmark. It's obvious Agent Hoyt considers Calder "little people", a civil servant beneath his attention, but Hoyt soon realizes he needs Calder's participation in bringing down "The Young Man" for a rather disturbing reason. It seems "The Young Man", who has eavesdropped on Calder's advice to the amusement park owners to take this man seriously and also appreciates Calder's reluctant accreditation of his demolition and engineering skills. In a way, this is very much like the relationship between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling in "Silence Of The Lambs"; in that the presence of evil is appeased by the respect shown to it by the forces of good.In the central portion of the film, "The Young Man" arranges for a payoff to be made at King's Dominion Amusement Park in Doswell, Virginia, and he wants Calder to personally deliver the money to him. Here is where "Rollercoaster" really takes off in terms of suspense and gamesmanship. Even though Calder is being watched by a legion of undercover agents, commanded by Agent Hoyt, "The Young Man" consistently moves Calder around the amusement park like a chess piece, from ride to ride, all to exhaust and throw off the agents shadowing Calder so that when the time comes for the drop to be made, they will all be out of position and looking the wrong way. "The Young Man's" plan seems to be successful, but then things change, setting up a very deadly endgame at the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia, CA. It is there that Calder and Agent Hoyt must engage "The Young Man" one last time, with the lives of innocent people hanging in the balance. I won't go into any further detail then that, because "Rollercoaster" is truly a lost "gem" from the 70′s in terms of its storytelling, pacing and buildup. Dare I say, this is a film that perhaps even Alfred Hitchcock would have approved of thanks to its nerve wracking atmosphere. Bottoms is cool, sinister and unsympathetic in the way he conducts business. Segal, who was in the prime of his career in the 70′s, plays his role with just the right amount of cynicism and contempt, balanced with a very begrudged respect for the villain. And Widmark completes the trio bringing all the bluster and bravado that cemented his legacy as one of the old school Hollywood "tough guys". It's also a fun period piece hearkening back to the days of the Carter Administration, bell bottom jeans, and acid rock. In one scene, a real life rock band called Sparxx plays a concert at the Magic Mountain Park for the audience waiting to take the first ride on a brand new roller-coaster, during which a bomb squad tentatively attempts to locate and disarm the deadly explosive left by the culprit. The crosscutting between the 70′s rock (think of the band Free, but on a much smaller scale) and the edgy business of pulling the plug without blowing up the works is very effective indeed. And the film is replete with such sequences, and that's half the fun of this movie: getting worked up, anticipating the worst, and holding your breath just in case it does.Bottom line: "Rollercoaster" is not about blood and guts and high profile deaths. If that's your cup of tea, this might not be the film for you. But if you enjoy suspense and well played confrontations and showdowns, "Rollercoaster" is a very enjoyable ride indeed!

While trying to find another angle towards the many disaster films that materialized back in the 1970's, "Rollercoaster", though not the worst film of this particular genre, but you'd be kidding me if you all think this was the best of of its genre, because in reality it never even comes close. Sure this film delivers a cornucopia of footage from the rollercoasters, but what brings this movie down was the narrow-thin plot and a poorly structured story. Directed by James Goldstone and running for exactly two hours, "Rollercoaster" is an excuse to exploit audience people who have short-attention spans, which leads to the gripping amusement park scenarios are awkwardly pasted on as a ploy to bring this story to feature-length. For the genre being a crime-drama, it's tedious and mundane which is rare because most crime dramas are both exciting and settling, "Rollercoaster" is simply not like that.Timothy Bottoms stars as a unnamed bomber who's modus operandi is to wring out $1 million from amusement park owners after observing that getting through security is a piece of cake. While at the amusement parks, he places explosives on the roller-coaster tracks and releases the bombs with the help of a remote trigger and promises to inflict more damage unless his demands are compromised. George Segal plays Insp. Harry Calder, a cantankerous man trying to quit smoking by using shock therapy, seems to have more access knowledge than the other detectives and just knows the right strategy needed to outsmart this sadistic fiend. He becomes the right person for the job while sacrificing his safety and finds himself in one precarious situation after another.Like its predecessors, this movie has an ensemble of talented thespians, although it doesn't really feature very many A-list performers. The only two standouts are popular 1970's performer George Segal and the very iconic Henry Fonda who was lowered to a very low supporting role and doesn't really have much to do here. There are debuts from younger performers who would go onto bigger and better roles in the future. Helen Hunt is in this movie playing Harry's daughter Tracy Calder. Although he did not get credit for his performance, Steve Guttenberg has a cameo role as a messenger. And voice legend Michael Bell is here in a small role as Chuck Demerest.During the time of its release, there was some speculation that theatres wanted to add more to the sound systems by creating more dimension to get the audience pumped up by creating sound-waves where bass speakers came into effect which would manipulate the theatre chairs to tremble on impact and to add extra sound during explosives, almost as though the audience was in on the action. This archaic technology was there way before HD and 3D were invented. I guess this was desperate move to keep the audience awake from their slumber because it sure didn't keep me awake.Even the technical features were a bummer as well. Lalo Schifrin's pedestrian score sounded like a giant rip-off to Hitchcock's "Psycho". And who in their right minds though that glam-rock musician Russell Mael of Sparks could act? Now "Big Boy" will etched in my mind for a very long time. For amusement park aficionados will marvel at the amusement park footages, but will not grab anyone else's attention if you are not. Even though there are a lot of casualties I the movie, the audience gets to witness only one. I guess the audience must be dumb or hard at seeing, but there are obvious dummies replacing live actors during the sporadic graphic scenes makes one felt like they were cheated by low-budget obviousness."Rollercoaster" is an obscure and dated film that was released at a time when disaster films were wearing out its welcome by the late 1970's. This movie might appeal to those who are nostalgic junkies or fans who love old movies and of course there are a few enthusiasts who insist that this movie is a top-notch heart-pulsing thriller. Sorry folks I'm not on your side for this one. This movie is one long, slow ride that will inspire you to seek elsewhere for more fun rides. Even the shaking, trembling seats would not have held my interest if I was old enough to had seen when it was released in 1977.

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.