Over the Top (1987)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Lincoln Hawk	Sylvester Stallone
Jason Cutler	Robert Loggia	½
Christina Cutler-Hawk	Susan Blakely	½
Bull Hurley	Rick Zumwalt
Michael Cutler	David Mendenhall

Review

From Sylvester Stallone's catalogue of arguably some of the softest films in movie history, Over the Top represents, if possible, the mushiest of them all. This is the ultimate raid on the vault of clichés. What's more impressive is that the screenwriter (Stallone, of course) mostly raids his own vault. Alter a few locations and a few characters (but never the lead), and this dramaturgy is identical to everything Stallone has written and will ever write. Filmmakers who follow the same thematic thread through a career are often said to be auteuristic, but in Stallone's case that is pushing it. There's no fundamental difference between the story of Lincoln Hawk and the story of Rocky Balboa, except that this one is so much worse.

Over the Top is so banally simplified that it defies logic completely. It's the ultimate narrow-sighted, Americanized worldview - the extreme polarization of everything: the intellectual vs. the "workers", rich vs. poor, good vs. bad. In here, everyone isn't just a stereotype - in this universe, everyone is a caricature. And what's worse, Stallone expects these people to evoke emotion in us.

From the stupid custody fight to the moronic arm-wrestle competition, this is complete filmatic waste. To say that Over the Top is over the top would be giving it credit it doesn't deserve. It's more a case of bottom of the pit. I feel sorry for the poor Ray Liotta lookalike of a kid who actually gives this an effort. That might go for director Golam as well, but he is so out of touch with human way of thinking that he doesn't count. Shame on Robert Loggia though, for letting himself get dragged into this project.