 ROLLOVER (1981) in the course of 115 minutes spins a “farfetched” political thriller featuring a take-no-prisoner business environment and a racist plot narrowly pointing its finger at negative Arab stereotypes that have wealth and want still more. But the movie does get under the skin by showing unconscionable bankers utterly insatiable and unworthy of that brass ring that elusively slips their grasp as they honor the creed of Greed under the intolerable weight of the world’s economic collapse.
This political-romantic thriller of a movie is perfectly in tune with America’s fear of the Middle East, embellishing those favorite themes of large-scale conspiracy and paranoia quite prevalent during 1980s. In summary, the story concerns the search to resolve financial problems of an ailing chemical company that winds up causing chaos for the entire international financial network. The monetary crisis inspires worldwide rioting when people discover their money is now worthless.
The film produced by Jane Fonda’s company, IPC (THE CHINA SYNDROME, 1979) and directed by Alan J. Pakula (ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, 1976) aptly describes the many symptoms of our current financial and economic dilemma today—nearly three decades before it had occurred, though the story misses the root cause.
The problem is not the Arabs.
The responsibility is our cultural chronic indebtedness, never hinted at in the movie, and the extent to which commoditization of nearly everything inhabits the free-market universe of laissez-faire. Loosening regulations on financial institutions (fruits of the Reagan Revolution and subprime debacle) and unraveling of consumer protections, consumers encouraged by President George W. Bush after 9/11 to go out and shop, unaffordable tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy conspiring to wreak havoc on personal and government finances (with hedge funds that produce speculative bubbles) not to mention policies of the last 30 years that underwrote the huge increase in personal and government borrowing….
Clearly, the problem isn’t the Arabs.
Released on 11 December 1981, ROLLOVER arrived during the era of President Ronald Reagan when no one in Hollywood—not even Jane Fonda—was willing to push the line of inquiry about our entire economy predicated upon mindless and infinitely decadent consumption. Why else are there too many commercials on commercial TV (radio and the Internet) except to sell us more of anything and everything that many of us cannot afford. Profligacy is simply not oriented toward any measure of common sense.
However, this film back in the day took a lot of heat for beginning a conversation, which America desperately needed to have but failed to engage. As talks in Washington D.C. steadily intensify, using words like “rescue” and “stimulus” and “bailout” the question rears its ugly head: When, precisely, did the United States lose the narrative on the economy?
Recently, a member of the Federal Reserve Bank surreptitiously confided that by 2013 the government will run out of money. Because this source is the anonymous kind, naturally credibility suffers, yet such a potential calamity in the near future is not unknown to history.
 John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) an American banker dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892, Morgan arranged the merger that formed General Electric, and in 1901 he combined several steel and iron companies to create United States Steel Corporation. Partners in J.P. Morgan & Co. along with the directors of two banks controlled aggregate resources that equaled the sum of all properties in the twenty-two states west of the Mississippi River.
 Cartoon of J.P. Morgan and smaller Uncle Sam
Enemies of banking attacked him for the terms of his loan of gold to the federal government during the crisis of 1895; and for his financial resolution of another panic in 1907
also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic, a financial crisis resulting when the New York Stock Exchange fell 50% from its peak during a time of economic recession withnumerous runs on the banks/trust companies that eventually spread throughout the nation when states, local banks and businesses entered into bankruptcy. Primary causes of the run include a retraction of market liquidity by a number of banks, loss of confidence among depositors, and absence of a statutory lender of last resort. Morgan came to the U.S. government's rescue.
 In 1837, the year that J.P. Morgan was born, the Free Banking Era began and lasted until 1862; in December, 1913 (Morgan died in March of that year at the age of 75) the Federal Reserve Act became law; the motivation for this lasting central system followed the Panic of 1907, renewing demands for banking and currency reform.
Making it know that 100 years after the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank that the U.S. government will run out of money, and with no J.P. Morgan on the horizon to help Congress fix the economy, the answer is not roaming the malls, ready to buy, anymore than embracing those Benjamin Franklin homilies about hard work, temperance and frugality. Today, Franklin would be thrown out of the country (club) for his value-laden thrift, and it would cost him a pretty penny to buy his way back in.
Shortsighted and naïve, ROLLOVER offers no remedy for the crisis, either then or now; just a warning. However, the film does show extraordinary prescience. It’s that rare cinematic experience when real life today is a rehash of a 27-year-old movie.
Hollywood had the intuitive feel for how to talk about the economy at large. But can they now offer a remedy for the crisis at hand? We'll have to wait for a remake.
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