Review of Over the Top (1987) by Josh G — 18 Aug 2009

Over the Top opens with alternating shots of Sylvester Stallone as a truck driver racing down the road to not-quite-hits from the '80s, and the graduation of a young boy (who we later find is Stallone's son) from West Point. The boy looks around in the crowd but finds no familiar faces - perhaps this sort of disillusionment is not atypical in his life, and explains the general uppity-ness that he later exhibits.

Yes, the kid is Stallone's son. Sly has been out of the picture for a long time because he devoted his life to truck driving and competitive arm wrestling, rather than, you know, raising his son. But all is forgiven when the mother finds herself succumbing to an unnamed but deadly disease and decides that her son needs to know who his father really is. The grandfather who loved the boy like he was his own suddenly converts to villainy and spends most of the rest of the film dreaming up ways to kidnap the boy. Why? Is he filled with gold or something? Do hired goons really go around beating up truck drivers and stealing kids because they respect the emotional bond that you share with the child?

Initially, Sly's son has some misgivings. His father is, yuck, a blue-collar guy who doesn't even enjoy reading. Son believes that driving a truck is a mindless job that any idiot can do, but Stallone proves him wrong (and bonds with him emotionally in the process) by... um... teaching this 10-year old kid how to drive a semi. And how to arm wrestle! Because arm wrestling is big in truck stops, where gaggles of truckers will gather around and place bets on who can topple another man's arm with sheer might alone. In fact, there's a whole arm wrestling convention in Las Vegas, where the grand prize is quite conveniently a brand new semi. Are truckers the only ones who arm wrestle? At the Las Vegas competition, there are packed stadiums full of fans roaring with delight as men square off under the bright lights. Arm wrestling.

Ba da ba da ba da, so it goes. Although Sly's son tells him early on that he quite literally hates his father, it is not long before Syvie's inherent likeability comes shining through. Soon Sly and son are hustling twelve-year olds at arcades, challenging them to arm wrestling matches on 10-to-1 odds just 'cause they know they can beat em. There's a weird training montage where father and boy seriously train their arms at dawn, doing weird one-handed pull-ups and lifting weights and... what?

There's an A.V. Club "My Year of Flops" review for Over the Top in which the movie is compared with Rocky repeatedly. Critic Nathan Rabin claims that the movie is just a watered-down version of Stallone's Oscar winning film, set to a new "sport" and with an annoying kid in place of a unassuming love interest. I didn't really make the connection when I was watching it, but in hindsight I suppose it is rather apt. I hate to compare the two, since Rocky had such an extraordinarily built relationship, but this film does seem to be trying to re-create the same dynamic and failing miserably at it.

Perhaps Over the Top is the definitive proof that the magic of Rocky was more of an accident than an accomplishment. Whatever the case, this movie fails to be original, entertaining, or even bad/ridiculous enough to be humorous.

It's mostly boring, and occasionally confusing. That's all.