Rollover

Another of the movies that I watched because it was about to leave the Watch TCM app was one that sounded like it had an interesting premise, and turned out to have a far more interesting, if flawed ending than the rest of the movie: Rollover.

The movie is set in the world of high finance, with the opening credits over shots of one of the trading floors at Boro National Bank in New York at night, when there's no trading going on. Boro National Bank is in a spot of financial difficulty, as they've got a bunch of international accounts, and the holders of their accounts want to repatriate their holdings, leading to a sort of run on the bank. Meanwhile, over at competing First New York Bank, the executive Maxwell Emery (Hume Cronyn) seems to be OK with this, as it will allow his bank to purchase a distressed asset at rock-bottom prices, much like buying a foreclosed house.

Also worried about the state of Boro National is Charlie Winters, head of a petrochemical company and one of the biggest American accounts at the bank, one that has no need of repatriating its accounts. Charlie is doing a bit of financial digging, and determines that money is being moved from places like Boro National to a mysterious account #21214 at First New York. But that's as far as he gets, because he's murdered.

Charlie leaves behind a widow, Lee (Jane Fonda) who, like Joan Crawford before her, was a Hollywood actress. Unlike Joan, however, Lee doesn't go back to acting and putting product placement of petrochemicals in her movies. Like Joan, however, she gets named to the board of the company, in fact becoming head of the company. She's no dummy, either, and has found a Spanish company whose assets would be perfect for her company, except that she's going to need financing through Boro National.

Maxwell, of course, is trying to get control of Boro National, and to that end sends executive Hub Smith (Kris Kristofferson) to work there to investigate the soundness of the underlying assets. Hub isn't so sure, and as he investigates of course he too is going to learn about that account #21214. Lee is going to discover it too, although in her case it's because she serendipitously finds a surreptitious recording her late husband had made talking about the account.

Eventually, it's discovered that the account is for another repatriation account, this one for Arab oil producers. They've been putting mid-seven-figure amounts of dollars into the account on a monthly basis, which is fairly substantial by early 1980s standards but not enough to cause bank runs. However, the Arabs have enough money that it could cause a run if they all decide to pull out their dollars in one fell swoop, and even Emery doesn't want that.

It's all an interesting premise, but one problem that a movie like Rollover faces is trying to present the world of high fiance in a way that's cinematically interesting, while also being intelligent and entertaining. One of the things Rollover does that doesn't work is to create a love interest between Lee Winters and Hub Smith. Rollover also posits an outcome of a liquidity crisis that to me didn't seem quite so realistic. Some might look at the politics of Jane Fonda and director Alan Pakula and blame this for the movie's conclusion, although I think that's a bit harsh.

Still, Rollover is interesting, at least as speculation and a look at how people saw the world of high finance circa 1980. It apparently got a DVD release courtesy of the Warner Archive, and can be streamed on at least Amazon Prime Video.