Over The Top

Donkey: Mental disorders are sweeping the nation, and who can blame them? If you find yourself alone on a Friday night and looking for someone imaginary to talk to, have always wanted an excuse to walk down the street while cursing the sun in urine-soaked pants, or have always wondered what it would be like to live a day in the life of Crispin Glover, then a bad wiring job in the brain just can’t be beat. It’s quite common to varying degrees in my family and the easiest way that this can be seen is with the mild Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that myself and my brothers share. It can manifest itself in rather bizarre ways and it’s on this topic that we come to our next film.

I first saw Over The Top years ago, when it was first released on SuperChannel, the only movie channel available in my day. I liked it, mostly because at that age I was stupid enough to like anything that passed a couple of hours of my time with bright colors and fabulous Hollywood starlets, but I never considered the movie to be particularly remarkable. My younger brother, however, loved this fucking film and it quickly became one of his greatest obsessions. For years after we saw it, he was convinced that he needed to drive a rig instead of any normal car. Not for working in the long haul truck driving profession, mind you, but just for taking to the corner store for candy and back. To this day when I think of this movie, I can’t help but think of my younger brother as a six year old kid, wearing sleeveless shirts and dreaming of hauling ass down a highway in a massive truck loaded with Food Fighters and Smack-Ups. If only you had known about that whole pissing in a bottle thing as a kid, Jeff, it might not have seemed so glorious. But regardless, let’s salute that dream by looking at the cinematic Lothario that slipped you a roofie and impregnated your mind with it in the first place.

The Plot:

Donkey: Some movies sound like great ideas, but lose something in the translation between screenplay and the actual screen, turning out to be a disastrous cock fondue. Think Ernest Scared Stupid. Some movies sound like they’d be as much fun to watch as puke hardening in a fat man’s ass crack after a night of hard drinking, and yet they turn out to be remarkably good. Think Ernest Goes To Jail. And some movies are so mind bogglingly stupid in their concept alone that you know they couldn’t possibly be good, no matter how drunk the producers were when they read the screenplay or what effeminate gymnast they hired to star in it. And that’s where Over The Top comes in.

Sylvester Stallone is Lincoln Hawk, a simple truck driver who has only one regret in life, besides a poor vocational choice. And to correct that mistake, he decides to defy common sense and and dangerous father-in-law, played by Robert Loggia, to win back the love of his estranged son. But as so many men have discovered in the past, it’s not easy earning back a love that you willingly discarded. So to accomplish this, he’ll need a cunning plan, and never one to back down from a challenge, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!’s Sylvester Stallone decides to lay it all on the line to win custody and the love of his son by…entering into the World Arm Wrestling Championships? Yes, you read that right. Arm wrestling.

Sound intriguing? No? Exactly.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Two Tickets To Body Odor Paradise

Donkey: As the curtains part to reveal the cinematic crotch fungus that is Over The Top, we begin by watching the two main characters go about their lives in the few remaining moments before their paths collide for all eternity. Sly enters the movie riding a giant metal steed on a saddle made of power ballads, setting his steeled gaze on the road ahead through the aviators of a champion. In other words, shitty music is playing while he drives his shitty rig. But goddamn if I don’t just want to go do some push-ups of glory right now! He’s on his way to pick up his estranged son, with whom he is going to attempt pick up the shattered pieces that remain of their relationship with all the grace of narcoleptic on a Valium bender. Being a man of class, Sly wants to make a grand entrance, so he stops to tend to his truck by giving it a good scrub down and polishing his hawk, his signature hood ornament.

Meanwhile his son Mike is graduating from his class in military school, and judging from his mannerisms throughout the rest of the film, I’m going to guess that it was a military hairdressing school. After the ceremony concludes, the kid wades through happy families doing happy bullshit, looking around for someone, anyone, to share in his rather pedestrian accomplishment of finishing another year of elementary school. And while Mike continues to search in futility, Sly pulls up to the front of the academy in his rig, showing a lot of sophistication by wearing suspenders and a tie with a denim shirt. As a dejected Mike’s about to get into a limo and head home alone, he gets called into the Colonel’s office, one would undoubtedly assume to share in some delicious chicken or possibly tacos. But alas, it’s not to be as instead the kid finds only the deadbeat dad he’s never known. To silence a very modest amount of protesting and prove his identity, Sly presents a picture of him and Mike’s mother in their wedding gear, which is probably the last time before today that he had worn a shirt that both had sleeves and was free of chili stains. Satisfied that he’s not a pervert, Mike reluctantly agrees goes with him. As they climb into his sweet diesel ride, Sly tells him that they’ve got a couple of days together to drive back to California before his mom goes into surgery. As they’re about to depart, Mike asks Sly if he really expects to make up ten years in two days. Stallone says no, but I humbly disagree. I think two days in a rig with Sylvester Stallone would seem exactly like ten years.

Not long after the caravan of awkwardness and fermented body odor gets going, Mikey complains that he hadn’t heard from Stallone for ten years. Naturally, Sly protests, saying that he’s written over a hundred times, for every one of Mike’s birthdays, every Christmas, and every time that Mikey popped into his mind while he was burying a transvestite prostitute. Not buying it, the kid then demands that Sly pull the rig over, exclaiming that he’s going to be sick. When Sly complies, the kid proves the exact value of an expensive, private education by jumping out of the truck and running straight into highway traffic.

While Stallone is busy wrangling his idiot son off the freeway, who’s scrambling around like a slow witted chicken, the first of many useless scenes featuring his father-in-law, played by the immortal Robert Loggia, begins. Robert shows up at the military academy with two henchmen in tow, demanding to know where his grandson is. What is Robert Loggia in this movie that would require him to have henchmen? Damned if I know. His profession is never once mentioned, so I’m assuming that those men are there more as a result of it being THE Robert Loggia than for the sake of what Robert’s character does for a living. Hell, I’d follow that guy wherever he wanted me to go. But when he hears that his daughter called ahead and requested that Mike be picked up by Sly, Robert gives us a taste of his signature unpleasantness. He growls that he can’t tolerate stupidity and that he’ll be bringing this to the attention of the school’s board. So this dude, who’s badass enough to have henchmen, is going to lodge an informal complaint? Perhaps even write a sternly worded letter? Wow. Don’t cross this ball-buster. He’ll tear you a new one, if you needed your bag of potato chips opened, that is.

Exhibit B: See…Isn’t This Fun? Whoops, Your Mom Is Dead.

The movie turns back to the truck just in time to catch Mikey giving Sly a lecture on cholesterol after lunch is suggested at a nearby truck stop. What a charming kid. I’d hand him a bottle of water, three Tic-Tacs, and leave him in the sun, telling him to stay slim while I go have a goddamn sandwich. Instead they stop at the truck stop anyways, which is filled with more people than I’ve ever seen in a fucking truck stop anywhere before in my life. They work their way through the crowd of unwashed masses and sit down for lunch, where Mikey delivers another outstanding speech on nutrition that makes me want to shove fistfuls of lard down this little shithead’s throat just out of spite. But once Hal Johnson has finished his Body Break and actually orders his goddamn pompous lunch, the fun and games come to an end. Sly is approached by a dude with a sweet blonde mullet proclaiming himself to be called The Smasher. This dude has heard that Sly’s the man to beat on the trucker arm wrestling circuit and demands that he be given a shot at the title. Hesitation turns to reluctant agreement once a thousand dollars is put on the line. The entire fucking diner, which has stopped all activity to hang on their every word, lets out a mighty cheer and starts migrating to the back. The kid, like the rest of us, is confused as to what the hell just happened and asks Stallone where he’s going. Sounding as cool as he can possibly muster when he’s doing something as retarded as arm wrestling for money, Sly says that he’s gotta go to work. See, that’s a shame. I remember when arm wrestling was all about the love of the game. Now it’s all about the bling. As Hawk walks through the parted crowd, over to the truck stop’s very official arm wrestling table, which is just insanity to think that they would actually have, he and his blonde opponent both psych themselves up by looking like they’re three quarters of the way through shitting their pants. Meanwhile, back at the bar, Mikey sits alone, watching from a distance when he’s approached by what is obviously a child molester and Sly’s chief nemesis, a massive man named Bull. After revealing that he’s Hawk’s son, Mikey discards the man’s advances and walks away to see the fight. Just before the grunting display of mindlessness is about to begin, Sly turns his hat backwards, letting everyone know that it’s party time. Finally the match begins and, of course, after the obligatory moment of looking like he’s about to lose, Sly destroys his opponent. He walks back to the bar to return to his meal, where he’s greeted by Bull, who asserts that Sly got lucky and challenges him to another match. Sly declines and tells the cartoonish villain that he’ll have to wait until Vegas.

Having realized that his father is cripplingly psychotic at this point, Mikey demands to talk to his mother and heads out to a pay phone. She gets his frantic call and soothes him from her hospital bed, telling Mike that he’s got so much more to see and experience in life. She reassures him that his father had his reasons for leaving, so try not to be too hard on him. Apparently that’s enough for Mike. They get rolling again, and after the standard fight where Michael doesn’t approve of listening to radical 80′s tunes on the radio, we discover that he’s has been told by his grandfather that Sly was a drug dealer. Sly denies it, of course, and says that the only mistake he ever made was leaving. And after another feeble attempt at character development, they end the scene with an awesome shot of Sly driving the rig on the wrong side of the road.

Back in her hospital, Robert Loggia and Stallone’s wife argue over her decision to hand Mikey over to his father. Not giving an inch, Robert Loggia patronizes her before he walks out of the hospital room and demands of the nearest doctor that he be informed of all calls to her personal line. The doctor, who doesn’t seem the slightest bit surprised by this request, says sure thing. What? How the fuck does Robert Loggia think a hospital works? Is he presuming that a doctor had nothing more to do than sit around and monitor her phone calls, or does this moron think that hospitals actually have phone tapping gear? Regardless, he continues his march out of what I’m presuming he thinks is Our Lady of CIA Tactics hospital, Robert Loggia is followed closely by his two henchmen. The stereotypically skinny and therefore obviously smart one tells him that all reports say that Sly and his son can’t be found while the big muscle-bound motherfucker stays silent. Never a fan of details, Loggia tells them to just do what they have to.

The movie goes back to the rig just as the sun falls. They pull over into a rest stop and Sly proposes that they sleep in the rig that night. Mikey rises to the challenge, exerting that if Sly can do it, he can do it. And now that they’ve committed to a full week of neck cramps, they make the most of it by putting their hands behind their head and leaning back slightly. Ahhhh…now that’s comfort. But before they begin to fight their way into unconsciousness, Sly offers his shoulder to Mike as a pillow. Wow, dad. Thanks. Ten years without seeing you and you can’t spring for an actual pillow. But I can use your bony shoulder? That’s love, baby. The next day they get up, ready to greet the day with…another awesome musical montage! They start with some light stretching before moving on to push-ups, some simulated air-arm-wrestling, and doing one-armed standing push-ups using the rig’s front grill. Fuck, that’s so ridiculous that I just want to stab my face repeatedly with an overripe slice of cantaloupe.

But there’s more to come. After ripping the sleeves off of Michael’s jacket to make him both a super badass and somehow illiterate, Stallone reveals his ultimate training device. Inside the rig, between the driver’s and passenger’s seat, he’s got a simple weight pulley system which he uses to exercise his one arm while driving. Fuck, that’s so hardcore. Goddamn now I don’t know want to do more: arm wrestle, or train to arm wrestle! But now that we’re so pumped, how do we end this scene? We start with Mikey insulting Sly, saying that there’s more to life than muscles, noting that he doesn’t see any books in the truck. He then basically calls his father retarded, which may not be far from the truth if you consider the film thus far. In response, Sly pulls the rig over to the side of the road and says that if Mikey’s so smart, he should be able to just get behind the wheel and drive the rig. Never one to pass up a challenge, the kid gets behind the wheel and after some coaxing and encouragement from Sly, not to mention enough bunny hopping with the clutch that you’d think the truck was on hydraulics, actually starts to drive the rig down the road. Goddamn it. There are two problems with that. First, Sly, haven’t you just proven that you are, in fact, the moron that you’ve been accused on being if your kid can drive that thing and do your job? I know you want to be encouraging and bond through positive reinforcement, but didn’t you do that at the cost of proving to your son that you’re a dunce? And second, once they start driving, we see that they’re on a two lane goddamn highway. Some quiet back road is one thing, but you let your kid drive a fucking rig on a two lane highway? Okay, you really are a fucking moron, Sly.

Feeling envious of all the jaw dropping ridiculousness that’s going on elsewhere, Robert Loggia draws us back to his office where the search for his grandson continues. Apparently getting an idea, he calls his brainy stooge over to his desk to request something, which we can’t hear, and then…the scene ends. It is literally seventeen seconds long and basically shows you NOTHING. Awesome.

Before we can recover from the beating that our throats have taken laughing their way through the last two scenes, we turn to Sly and Mikey having lunch at another diner. As they pack up to leave, Sly gets an idea almost as good as just walking out on this movie before it can damage his career any further. He takes Mikey back to the small arcade area where a group of local tough kids are playing videogames. And you know they’re tough because the leader is wearing a sleeveless vest with no shirt underneath, black BMX gloves, and is sporting some of the worst 80′s hair I can imagine. Before he can give his son the chance to object, Sly challenges them to an arm wrestling match with Mikey, betting a whole ten dollars that his kid will beat their ringleader two of three times. After a couple of minutes of Mike refusing to participate and the punk kid slathering on the preteen bravado, Stallone manages to convince Mike to do it. The match is on! On ‘til the break of dawn! They begin and of course, Mikey loses. This fucking kid is way bigger than him, so what the fuck did Stallone expect? As soon the match ends, Mikey runs out of the diner and into the parking lot, thoroughly humiliated. No shit. I would be too. Not giving up on his bad investment, Sly runs outside and gives him an inspirational speech about how he lost because he let himself get beat. Nope, I’m pretty sure it’s because the other kid is about three years older and much bigger than him. Stallone continues, saying that Mike’s a special kid, but that he’s also a rich brat who needs to learn to do things for himself. Because the world meets no one halfway, baby. Sly finishes by saying that he knows that Mike can win, but even if he loses, at least he loses with dignity. Inspired, Mikey goes back into the diner and steps up to take on the punk again, suddenly with balls steel. The other kid agrees and we’re back on! Stallone turns Mike’s hat backwards for him, telling the kid that it’s time to go to work. FUCK. I think that just took about a year off my life expectancy. The remarkably unentertaining match begins and Sly starts saying “over the top!” For reasons I can’t explain, Mike somehow knows that this is a term for putting your fingers over the top of the other kid’s fist. So he does that and manages to win. Seriously, how the fuck did he know what that phrase meant? Stallone hadn’t explained it, or even mentioned it offhandedly up to this point. I didn’t know what it meant, and trust me, I’m a lot goddamn smarter than this kid. But even better than that is how that looked the first time we watched this movie. We hadn’t seen this movie in well over a decade, so we naturally didn’t remember the phrase’s meaning or notice the small gesture that Mike does as a result of Sly’s yelling. So at the time, it just looked like Stallone was repeatedly shouting a useless catchphrase, and the movie’s title at that. It looked about as stupid as it would have if Kurt Thomas had yelled, ”GYMKATA!” after every time he almost hit one of his opponents with one of his flipping attacks. Enraged, the cyberpunk demands the third and deciding match, which again, Mikey wins even more handily.

After some recklessly vicarious living through his child, Sly and Mikey are in high spirits and decide to call back to speak to his mother. Mike regales his mother with the tedious details of his victory before he hands the phone over to his dad. But as Sly takes his turn talking to her in the phone booth, Mikey gets kidnapped outside by a couple of random goons who carry him off into a pickup truck. Stallone notices the kidnapping and runs out in pursuit, where he is attacked by a third man who is considerate enough to get his ass kicked within seconds. Sly then jumps into his rig and chases after the two dudes driving off with his son in the pickup truck. After a stereotypical and yawn inducing chase scene, Sly runs the truck off the road and the two dudes flee the truck, leaving the kid behind.

With all that non-excitement done, it’s time to check back into the House of Ball-busting, where his lawyer tells Robert Loggia that no court will give him custody of the boy over Stallone unless he can prove that Stallone can’t support him. Robert argues that there’s always a way to bend the law. And with that, another pointless scene ends. Fuck, these scenes are a bigger waste of goddamn time than commercial breaks.

As they are entering the final stretch of their journey, Stallone shares his big plans in life with Mike. If he wins the big championship in Vegas, he wants to start his own trucking company. Mikey counters by asking why Sly left him and his mother. Sly stumbles around the issue, preferring to continue his poor attempts at dodging the subject rather than coming out and telling the truth, simply replying that he had his reasons. Luckily for him, the subject is dropped as they finally make it to the hospital. They stroll in with flowers in hand and looking as good as you can when you’ve spent two straight days in a metal box, just to find out that their wife/mother died in the operating room earlier that day. Devastated, Mikey runs out of the hospital with Sly in tow, getting back to the truck where he says that if he had just flown home instead of coming with Stallone, he would have seen his mother again before she died. As Sly tries to stammer out a futile rebuttal, Mike jumps into a nearby cab, which takes off immediately before Stallone can stop him. That’s more than a little bizarre. What fucking cab drives off instantly when a ten year old gets in?

Exhibit C: What Happens In Vegas…Stays Ridiculous

From that point, the movie skips straight to the mother’s funeral. Sly strides up in the middle of the priest’s speech and drops flowers on the casket before walking away again. Robert Loggia looks on in seething anger while Mikey looks on in sexual confusion. Another great scene, but at least it doesn’t end there. Later that evening, Sly is sitting down by the ocean on the back of his rig, plotting his next move. Apparently the best that he can come up with is to drive to Robert Loggia’s estate, smash through the front gate, and drive his rig right into the front of his mansion. After doing just that, Sly climbs out of his truck and wanders into the foyer of the mansion, calling for Mike just as the kid and Robert Loggia appear. As you can probably guess, after asking Mike to come away with him and getting chastised by Robert Loggia, Stallone gets tackled by goons that subdue him until the cops arrive seconds later to arrest him. Wow. Great fucking plan, Sly.

The next stop on this magical journey is a jail, where Sly is visited by Robert Loggia’s personal secretary who presents him with a contract. It demands that he leaves the state and doesn’t pursue custody of Michael, and in return they won’t prosecute him for being clinically retarded. When he asks what Mikey’s got to say about it, the kid comes in and asks some surprisingly realistic questions. If he comes with Sly, what kind of home will he have? Where will they go? What school will he be enrolled in? Will Stallone help Mike set up an aggressive investment package using the insider trading tips that he’s received on third quarter growth in the soy bean sector? Sly’s acknowledges that he doesn’t know the answer to pretty much any of those questions, and that all he can promise is that they’d be together. Having already seen the stupidity that would entail, the kid concludes that he can’t go with him. Dejected and facing several years of prison-wine-inspired sodomy, Stallone relents and signs the contract. But before the secretary leaves with Mike, Stallone takes one last moment to remind him that the world meets no one halfway, that he’s got to do what’s right for him. Yeah, I think that’s what he just did, Sly. Thanks, though. And seriously, how much do you want to keep saying that when it just sounds like a shitty philosophical excuse for having abandoned him for years? “Hey, I had to do what was right for me. So suck it, kid.” But now that everything appears to be settled, we see Sly back on the road in his rig, exercising his one arm with as much sadness as human growth hormones can allow him to muster.

Things have gotten pretty heavy right about now, so to pick things up, it’s time for another musical interlude featuring our two heroes. While Hawk sells his truck to make it to Vegas and bet on himself in the big competition, Mikey pokes around the house and finally finds all the letters that Sly wrote him over the years. Wait…if Robert Loggia kept those from Michael, why would they be sitting around in a pile somewhere? Wouldn’t he just shred them? Nevermind. Suddenly all is forgiven, so as we see Stallone weighing in at the big tournament, we also see Mikey sneaking out of the house and stealing a pickup truck. As he races off to be with his father, it cuts back to more montage shots of arm wrestlers preparing for the competition, including a dude with one of the sweetest white man afros ever to grace the silver screen.

As Sammy Haggar continues to serenade us, the movie continues to jump between Mikey and Stallone on their paths of glory. Mikey races to the airport, ditches the truck there, and gets on a plane to Vegas. Since we’re never shown how the fuck that kid came up with the money to pay for a plane ticket or who the fuck would sell one to a lone child, I’m going to assume that he used three packs of Major League Chew and a Rod Brind’Amour rookie card to buy a ticket off a ticket agent who was looking for a way to be fired so that he could pursue his dream career in sock puppetry. Robert Loggia gets wind of this, of course, and follows Mikey to Vegas on his private plane. Meanwhile, back in Vegas they set up the backdrop of the big competition before kicking it off in full. It’s first explained that the best arm wrestlers have come from all over the world to compete in the greatest competition of athletic prowess that no one’s ever heard of, giving Italy and Japan as examples. They also explain that it’s a double elimination tournament, which means you have to lose twice to be out. Once that clarification is stammered out of the announcer with as much poise as it would have if he had tried to say it while belching, the competition begins and we see a bunch of random matches between random sweaty dudes who apparently have for too much time on their hands.

At this point the montage has gone on long enough, so to cut to the chase, we’re told that the competition is now down to the semi-finals. Once again the movie sees fit to remind us that people have come from all over the world and that it’s a double elimination tournament before finally revealing the grand prize for winning: a hundred grand and a brand new rig worth a quarter million dollars. Whoa…hold the phone. The grand prize is a fucking rig? Isn’t that pretty fucking convenient, not to mention ridiculously narrow in scope? It’s not like all arm wrestlers have to be fucking truckers, so how many contestants would win that prize and just say, “thanks,but, um…now what?”. And since you assholes keep reminding us that people have come from all over the world to compete, how about you take a moment to tell us how those people would plan on taking a fucking rig back with them, even if they wanted the thing? It’s not like that shit fits in the overhead bin if you just push hard enough. Goddamn it, that’s just lunacy. But with the groundwork set, it’s time to introduce our eight remaining contestants. As they’re called up one by one, it cuts to a brief clip of each one of them being interviewed where they spout out stereotypical bullshit that result in absolutely no character development at all. That would have been more useful if the dudes gave the standard Playmate profile information, like bust size, turn-ons, and turn-offs. And not only do they waste my fucking time, they don’t even bother to waste as much time as they said they would. They say that they’re going to introduce the eight semi-finalists, and yet they only actually introduce six men. I guess first grade math isn’t a prerequisite to arm wrestling.

Mikey arrives in Vegas just as the semi-finals begin, and Stallone prepares to face his first opponent. With the minuscule amount of tension building, the movie decides to ratchet it up a notch by filming the match in super slow motion to really, really drag it out as Sly unexpectedly loses the match. WHAT?! NOOOO!!!!! Could this be the end? Did we just sit through this whole movie for Stallone to lose his son and the competition? As fucking hilarious as that would be, which already has me imagining the suicide scene that would close the movie, the fucking ring announcer doesn’t wait more than four seconds after the end of the bout to remind us once again that it’s a double elimination tournament. It’s like this movie is working it’s ass off to make sure that you don’t just turn it off at this point. And just as Stallone walks away from the stage to lick his wounds, we see Robert Loggia is in the tournament crowd. He sends his burly henchman to fetch Sly and take him up to his Presidential Suite. With thirty minutes free before his next bout when he receives the invitation, Stallone agrees.

The meeting itself is rather short and sweet. After all, you don’t want to cut away from this pulse-pounding, nail-biting action for long, or the audience will end up remembering that this movie has no real story. As soon as he walks into the suite, Robert Loggia takes Stallone out onto the balcony where he points down at the parking lot, showing him the purpose of their rendezvous. Much like the deal that he already signed in prison (and hadn’t broken up to this point, which makes this whole thing all the more confusing), Loggia offers to give Sly a brand new rig and five hundred grand if he’ll just leave. And even though that’s more than the tournament’s grand prize, Sly declines, saying that once he wins, he’ll be coming for Michael. Not satisfied with the answer, Loggia turns to his brutish thug, motioning for him to stop Sly from leaving. But just to really up to unnecessary violence quotient of the movie, Stallone puts the man through the glass patio door when he attempts to restrain him. That a boy, Sly. There’s no better way to make sure that you’re in top form for the competition than some hand to hand combat. We can only hope that Sylvester tries unsuccessfully to karate chop a marble statue in half with his wrestling arm, just to prove no point whatsoever.

As the competition is about to start again, the announcer reminds us AGAIN that this is a double elimination contest. Fuck, WE GET IT. But if that wasn’t stupid enough, the dude that Sly’s about to face off against drinks a quart of motor oil right before the match is about to start, just to prove how badass he is. Fuck, I’m pretty sure that can kill you. So showing all the brains that I’d expect from these competitors, this genius has decided that even if he wins, he’s still going to die regardless. And for that, I salute you. Once their match actually begins, Sly wins almost instantaneously. Fuck, it might have been that motor oil poisoning you, douche bag. Once that’s out of the way, it’s time for more fighting montages. Dudes arm wrestle other dudes to bring the size of the final pack down, and we can’t really describe much of it to you, because it’s goddamn arm wrestling. All the matches look the goddamn same, as do all the sweaty, burly men involved in them.

Mikey finally enters the arena where the tournament is being held just before it moves into the final four, a group which they call, go figure, OVER THE TOP. I’ve got a better name: THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE SNORE-POCALYPSE. They take a moment to introduce the four men with short interview clips again, why I’ll never know. Sly is there of course, as is his massive arch-rival, Bull, along with two dudes that I don’t give a shit about, even though I’ve been introduced to them twice now. Fuck, this whole is proving to be about as dramatic as trimming your toenails. Sly and Bull both beat their opponents, go figure, setting the stage for the ultimate final. And just as he’s resting for that final match, Mikey shows up and tells Sly that he wants to be with him. Stallone finds this news so inspiring that he starts talking about how Bull is real good, that he might lose to him. Naturally, this causes Mikey to give him the same speech that he’s heard several times himself by this point, about how the world meets no man half way, that he’s got to do if for himself. And, of course, this powerful soliloquy works as well on him as it did on his son.

Exhibit D: Two Men, One Dream, Zero High School Diplomas

Now that Stallone has wiped his eyes and made sure his training bra is in place, the final match between Bull and the little girl that Sly has turned out to be is set. As the athletes approach the platform, the announcer takes a moment to once again remind us of the grand prize. And since we’re already exploring the land of time wasting redundancy, how about they cut to more fucking interviews? In these filmed moments of glory, Bull says that Stallone has no business being in the ring with him, while Stallone talks about how he turns his hat backwards just before he arm wrestles because it feels like a switch that turns him into an arm wrestling machine. And while he’s explaining this, it shows Stallone getting ready at the final table, turning his hate backwards. Fuck, I’m glad they explained that because I never would have figured that out on my own. Here I was thinking that he did it in case there was the chance that his opponent might want to lean in and make out. So I guess I’m the asshole. But now that we’ve stretched out the running time of this movie as much as possible, the final match actually begins. As they lock fists and begin their grunting pleasure, the match starts and it immediately looks as though Bull is about to win. But just before it once again looks as though that suicide ending where Stallone chokes himself to death with his own panties comes to pass, Sly’s hand slips and they break apart. Goddamn this is dramatic! But to ensure that they don’t let go of each other again, the refs of the match joins the two combatants hands together using…THE STRAP. They’re introduction of the device sounds rather menacing, but it’s just a simple leather strap.

Once they’re tied together and Mikey starts to begs Stallone to win from the audience, Bull uses the distraction to punch Stallone in the nose with their collective, strapped together fists. Hey Chubs, there are refs right there. You might want to be a little more subtle. But for those of you wondering if he should have been given a strong warning about that, if not disqualified altogether, I would advise you to go back to your rocket science research and keep your big brains to yourself. They start the match again seconds later, and after creating tension by looking like he’s going to lose for about ten minutes, Stallone goes “over the top” on Bull and, even though he’s about a hundred pounds lighter than this guy, comes back to win! Hurray! He’s declared the champion and official winner of the tournament. Taking the loss surprisingly well, Bull holds up Stallone’s hand to recognize his victory. And as Stallone carries his son around the stage in victory, Robert Loggia looks on from the crowd and nods in begrudging respect, as if to concede that he’ll let Stallone keep his kid. But while the film gets carried away in jubilation, I’d like to remind them that this is a double elimination tournament. After all, they only reminded us of that fact about a dozen times. So since we didn’t see Bull lose a match before the final, shouldn’t they have to do that again? But as we’re left asking the obvious once again, the scene fades to black.

To finish this clusterfuck properly with one last money shot, we see Stallone and his son getting their new truck ready by screwing his signature hawk hood ornament onto the rig while they chat about opening their new trucking company. I’d like to suggest that they call it Two Men In The Closet. But seeing as my shouting can’t travel through the TV back to 1987 where they can hear this movie, they ignore my suggestion and get into their new ride, fire the best up, and roll off into the sunset giving one another high fives and still having no plan whatsoever about how he’s going to take care of his son. That’s so sweet that I think I just got diabetes.

The Verdict:

Donkey: I’m not a psychic, but I’m supremely confident that I can tell you the exact conversation that went down between the writers and the studio when they were pitching the concept of this shit taco: “Let’s put you in a movie, Stallone, only instead of Russians or the seedy criminal underbelly of a major metropolis, we’ll have you fighting for…the love of your son. You abandoned him years ago for reasons we’ll never actually give, but trust us, they’re totally legit. And now his mother wants you to get to know him because she is dying of an illness that we’ll never actually give, but trust us, it’s totally lethal. The problem is that her father doesn’t want you back in the picture and he’s a pretty powerful and scary guy for reasons that we’ll never actually give, but trust us, he’ll be totally badass. So to prove your worth to the boy, we’ve got to have you doing something that’s totally macho and yet makes no sense. Arm wrestling? Done. You’re about to compete in the World Championships of Arm Wrestling…they have those, don’t they?….so that you can win a fabulous cash prize and….um….a brand new rig! Yeah! Because all arm wrestlers are truck drivers! Right? Whoa, hey, pass that coke before it’s all gone…” The only way that pumping out garbage that half baked doesn’t deserve a slap in the head is if I give someone a Lite-Brite and ten minutes to write a screenplay on it. But the fact that someone thought to actually release this into theaters is what makes it infinitely hilarious and a classic film for generations to ponder over for years to come. I give it five estranged sons out of five completely inappropriate grand prizes.

What We Learned:

Donkey: It might be hard to see from where you’re sitting and eating your barely edible food, but if you wander to the back corner of a truck stop diner and look around, you’ll find an official, regulation arm wrestling table. That’s a fact.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a film that’s every bit as great as its name, when we turn around to discover…EVIL BEHIND YOU.

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