Well, hey there, and welcome to a new episode of Pick Six Movies. And let me begin with a question. You want to arm wrestle? Why wouldn't you? Why arm wrestling is just holding hands with a little more oomph. It's shaking hands with more sweat, it's the high five that goes on for far too long and it's at the center, or at least the end, of this week's movie.
Over the top is filled with all the father son, tropes and Robert logea scowling that a movie made up almost entirely of montages can fit inside it's brief runtime. And why are we watching it? Why, that's the whole premise of the show. Pick Six Movies is a podcast where we pick a theme in the case of season 25, something we call Holiday Road, all about road trip movies and then we take six movies based on that theme and give them the business.
We give you a little history of the movie, maybe a fancy anecdote or two, and then my best pal, chad he's the one doing the introduction in a minute and me that's Bo who's talking right now come together to turn our hats around and look at the movie scene by scene to see what makes it tick. But enough explaining, let's get to some wrestling. Chad, show these folks how sweaty an introduction can be.
And here we are once again with Beth S the intern and Beth T the intern, two Beths working with me today. Help me record this introduction. You know, beths, when I stopped to think about the number of emails that we received wanting us to review over the top. That number is one, that's right. One single email here it says hey guys, how about you review over the top with Sly Stallone?
Sincerely, mitch Come-Steen Parenthesis, not my real name, you don't say Mitch Life lesson here, beths, even the smallest action can have a huge impact. That quick little email changed the life trajectories of staffers here at Picksix Movies. The research that other people did about this film, the writing of this intro Heck, it led to us needing not one but two Beths to the interns To help me record this introduction. Let me ask you this, Beths have you watched Over the Top?
Do either of you even know what Over the Top is about? Nope, beth S. Sorry, beth T. You were thinking about the animated Raccoon and Turtle Suburban sprawl film Over the Hedge, based on the newspaper comic strip of the same name. That you've also probably never heard of. Over the Top is a movie about arm wrestling. You look confused, beth T. I gotta write that time and you look disappointed. Beth S, you know what?
Give me some music and I'm gonna do my best to explain what the heck's going on here. That's nice music. Here we go. I came of age in the 1980s. This was the decade that gave us MTV, rubik's Cube, david Hasselhoff and what many film historians consider to be the golden age of arm wrestling cinema.
Because who can forget, in Friday the 13th, part 2, when Mark, a camp counselor in a wheelchair who is also the guy Vicky, another camp counselor, has the hots for Well, mark, he arm wrestles this joker who thinks he can beat a horny guy in a wheelchair. Haha, fat chance random guy. Mark wins and Vicky rewards Mark with the possibility of some sexy time.
But Mark takes a machete to the head from Jason Voorhees, sending Mark's wheelchair bouncing down a flight of stairs and later Vicky gets stabbed to death with a knife also special delivery, courtesy of Jason Voorhees. Moving on. Who can forget when Soda, as played by Rob Lowe, arm wrestled, steve, as played by Tom Cruise in the adaptation of SE Hinton's young adult novel the Outsiders?
That movie also featured Emilio Estevez, patrick Swayze, matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, c Thomas Howe Not in Blackface Diane Lane and Leaf Garrett. Talk about a cast that old people find impressive. How about Superman 2? In general, zod and Ursa entered a diner in Texas, whereupon Ursa finds two old timers wrapped up in a game of arm wrestling. The winner of the match, who is wearing overalls, a red plaid shirt and a cowboy hat, tells Ursa shift him buns right down here and he smacks his lap.
Ursa sits down and says let's just hold hands, inviting him to arm wrestle. The redneck says tell me if this here tickles. And then Ursa throws the plaid clad redneck right through the table. Take that plaid clad redneck. Hooray for Ursa. Although later Lois Lane punches her in the face and kills her.
And who can forget in 1987's Predator, when Dutch Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Dillon Carl Weathers meet up in some rural mercenary bar and they greet each other with a handshake that turns into a free-form, mid-air, no-table-needed arm wrestling match. Who can forget that? Probably almost everyone.
I would say, what about in 1984's Revenge of the Nerds, when a ragtag group of misfits from a fraternity and the adorably disgusting nerd, dudley Booger Dawson wins the arm wrestling competition during the Greek Games because his hands are covered in boogers and snot?
Also in that movie, the main nerd, louis Skolnick, wears a Darth Vader mask that conceals his identity and he pretends to be the boyfriend of a cheerleader named Betty Childs and he tricks her into having sex with him, thus committing rape by deception.
This all happens after the heroes of the movie, the nerds, sell nude photos of cheerleader Betty Childs, taken without her knowledge using a hidden camera that they illegally placed in her sorority house along with the bedrooms of multiple other women. This movie also contains offensive Asian stereotypes, homophobia, hate speech and a heaping help in a heap of racism. And after all that they made three sequels.
Hey, let's talk about arm wrestling in a less problematic movie, david Cronenberg's the Fly, which featured the grotesque transformation of Seth Brundle as played by everybody's favorite weirdo, jeff Goldblum. That movie, seth Brundle gets his genetics all mashed up with a common housefly, giving Seth Brundle superhuman strength, which Seth Brundle uses to produce a compound fracture of a guy's wrist when an arm wrestling competition goes sideways, snap, crackle, pop that wrist right open.
But these are just mere moments in vintage 80's cinema that feature the ancient sport of arm wrestling. There's just one filmmaker bold enough to bring to the big screen a movie that showcased the dedication, intensity and nobility of the mono-e-mono sport of arm wrestling. And to tell that story we head to Israel. Menheim Golan was born Menheim Globus on May 31, 1929 in Tiberias, a city on the sea of Galilee in what was then Palestine and is now Israel.
Later in life he was a pilot indie Israeli War of Independence and later changed his name to Golan after the state of Israel was established. Following his time in the military, golan went to London to study drama and theater at the Old Vic Theater and later returned to Israel where he staged plays. Looking to expand his interest in the dramatic arts, golan moved to the United States to study film.
In New York he landed his first job making movies as a production assistant for King of the Bee Movie Maker's Roger Corman on a film titled the Young Racers, where Corman and Golan formed a friendship. Golan returned to Israel and began collaborating with his cousin Jormyn Globus, and they wrote and directed the 1963 film El Dorado. One year later their production of Shala Shabadi received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Good for them. The cousins kept making movies.
In 1978, golan immigrated to the United States and one year after that Golan and his cousin purchased the struggling production company, the Canning Group Incorporated. Golan and his cousin Globus made a practice of buying cheap scripts and turning them into low budget movies. Remember he studied at the foot of Roger Corman. They made movies across all genres of film, but in the 1980s there was a real market for cheap action movies and Canon Films was happy to meet that demand.
This all started when Canon Films announced that they were going to make a sequel to the 1974 film Death Wish that starred Charles Bronson. Did they have the rights to make this movie? Of course not. But this is show business, baby. You don't sell the steak, you sell the scissor. Dino De Laurentiis, who co-produced the original Death Wish film, ultimately sold the rights to Golan and his cousin. They brought in writer David Engelbach to write the screenplay.
Engelbach's previous writing credits were nothing. He'd never written anything that had ever been produced into anything that resembled a movie. But hey, it's Death Wish 2. Engelbach writes the script, they make the movie and Engelbach goes to see the final film and he is appalled by what is on the screen. Death Wish 2 was gratuitously violent and it had added rape scenes. None of this was in Engelbach's original draft. The movie comes out and guess what? It's a success.
Of course it is Welcome to America. It pulls in 2 million bucks for canon films. Then it hit the home video market and made a ton of cash. Then it went into heavy rotation on HBO and other paid movie channels and gained more popularity, despite the fact the critics overwhelmingly disliked the movie. The success of Death Wish 2 led canon to crank out Death Wish 3 and Death Wish 4, the crackdown.
Not to be confused with the film Butt Crack or its sequel Butt Crack 2, the Crack is back to low budget films featuring a homicidal maniac who kills people with a weed eater. Good luck finding copies of those. But canon films was on to something Cheaply made action movies starring white guys with guns killing people. Chuck Norris showed up to star in Missing in Action and later went on to star in that movie's sequel. Well, it was actually a prequel.
Missing in Action 2, the beginning, which then led to a sequel of the original Bratac Missing in Action 3. Canon films kept cranking out cheap movies, sometimes getting funding for a movie that was in production based on the speculation for a movie that would be made in the future.
They would just design posters for movies featuring images and actors that were just made up, and then they would get people to back those future movies to help pay off the budget of a movie that they were already working on. Sounds like a Ponzi scheme Sell the sizzle baby, not the steak. During the 1980s, canon films tapped into any fad that could come along and turned it into a movie.
The spike in popularity of 3D movies and the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark led canon films to produce Treasure of the Fall Crowns in 3D. Conan the Barbarian was successful on the big screen, so Conan films made Hercules Hercules starring TV's Incredible Hulk Lou Ferrigno. The popularity of breakdancing led to the film Break-In and its almost more famous sequel, break into Electric Boogaloo. These movies were released in the same year, six months apart.
Canon cranked out some sexy movies too, including Lady Chatterley's Lover, mata Hari and Balero starring Bo Derek, and it was canon films that were primarily responsible for fueling the curious interest in ninjas in the 1980s, with films like Enter the Ninja and its sequel, revenge of the Ninja and Ninja 3, the Nomination, as well as American Ninja and American Ninja 2, the Confrontation.
Canon was all over the place, just cranking out mostly low budget movies that didn't have huge movie stars, in hopes of returning a buck or two on their investment. And it wasn't until 1986 that Canon made it to the big leagues when they landed Sylvester Stallone to star as Lieutenant Marion Cobra-Cobretti in the action-packed movie Cobra. Stallone at the time was riding high, having starred in Rocky, rocky II, nighthawks, rocky III and First Blood.
Stallone had a slight misstep here and there when he appeared alongside Dolly Parton in the romantic comedy semi-musical film Rhinestown, but he found his box office footing again with Rambo, first Blood Part II and Rocky IV both coming out the same year. Who do you think you are the breaking movies? Stallone was as big as a movie star could get in the mid-80s. Around this time Stallone was offered the lead in a movie called Beverly Hills Cop.
Stallone read the script and decided it needs some changes, removing all of the humor and focusing more on the film's action. In this rewrite, stallone renamed the lead to Axel Cobra-Cobretti. He said that his rewrite of the movie would now include an opening that some said rivaled Saving Private Ryan in regard to human carnage, and the movie would end with Sylvester Stallone in a Lamborghini playing chicken with an oncoming freight train. How does the train turn?
Oh, okay, the producers behind Beverly Hills Cop read these rewrites and they said thanks, but no thanks. Your rewrite sounds like trash. To which Cannon Film said did someone say trash? Cannon Film signed on with Sylvester Stallone with his idea for a movie and created the film Cobra, which, when finished, originally received an X rating due to the excessive violence. Cobra was directed by George Cosmatos, who was the director of Rambo First Blood Part II. Huh, that makes sense.
Cosmatos and team toned down Cobra enough to get an R rating. The movie comes out and it costs about 35 million bucks to make, and it pulled in 160 million bucks, making it the most successful Cannon Film ever. And with the financial success of this film in the bank, producers were eager to make another hit film with Sylvester Stallone and Minheim Golan wanted to be in the director's chair for that ride.
In addition to his writing and producing duties with Cannon Films, golan regularly found time to direct about a movie each year, including the aforementioned Enter the Ninja. He directed the romantic comedy Over the Brooklyn Bridge and the Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin action film, delta Force.
And when the opportunity to direct Sly Stallone in a movie that really tapped into Sly's star power and ripped off the sports theme of an underdog that was used in four that's right, four Rocky movies, Golan couldn't say no. Remember this was Cannon Films. Now it's important to note where Sylvester Stallone was in his career. At this time he was just on the edge where every movie he made essentially turned out to be him playing Sylvester Stallone.
He was kind of the same movie star in every role. I'm talking about movies like Tango and Cash Stop or my Mom Will Shoot, oscar Cliffhanger, demolition man, assassins, daylight it's all kind of the same character, but over the top preceded that, and in this movie he was really playing more of the every man whose only extraordinary power is arm wrestling.
In the movie Stallone plays Lincoln Hawk, who was called Hawk, or Hawks sometimes, because the script was sloppy and maybe the actors weren't professional or the director wasn't paying attention, or perhaps some combination of all three. Golan and the Cannon team hired Sterling Siliphant to write the screenplay, telling him you know it's like Rocky, but with arm wrestling, and swap out the girlfriend with a kid.
It sounds like they're just following that playbook Barton Fink took to write that Wallace Beery wrestling picture. Anyway, if Sterling Siliphant's name rings a bell, it's because he wrote the screenplay for the Swarm, the movie that was like Jaws but with bees, and reviewed on this very podcast back in season 16, episode 3,. That was a very funny episode. David Engelbach, if you're taking notes remember, wrote Death Wish 2. He also got some screenplay writing creditors.
Well, this after he wrote and directed the canon produced film America 3000. A film set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where a tribe of women rule and men are either feral or slaves. Remember, this is a canon film. Over the top would also featured Robert Loja as the rich, grumpy father-in-law who wants nothing to do with every man.
Sylvester Stallone, you may remember Robert Loja as the guy who played the oversized piano with Tom Hanks in Big, or perhaps from the 1999 commercial for Minute Made Orange Tangerine Breakfast. Drink Beth S roll that beautiful juice footage.
Try some New Minute Made Orange Tangerine. It's got calcium, Then I'm not drinking it.
Oh no, it's sweet, you like it.
I don't believe you.
Well then, who would you believe?
I don't know Robert Loja.
Whoa, Robert Loja. Billy, your mother's right New Minute Made Orange Tangerine tastes great. This guy has as much calcium as milk.
If you say so, Mr Loja.
Yeah, this is great. Enjoy your breakfast.
New Minute Made Orange Tangerine with calcium. Yeah, so that was the thing that was on TV back in the 90s. Y2k had everybody nuts back then. Let's move on. Christina Hawke, the estranged wife in the movie, was played by Susan Blakely, who had had roles in the Towering Inferno and the fourth installment of those airport disaster series films titled Concord Airport 79. David Mindl Hall came on to play Mike Sly Stallone's son in the movie.
He was best known at the time for being the white kid who sold drugs to Arnold and Dudley on a very special episode of Different Strokes that also featured a cameo by First Lady Nancy Reagan reminding American children to just say no to drugs. Beth S, beth T, did you know that former First Lady Nancy Reagan went on a sitcom titled Different Strokes and told all the kids in America to just say no to drugs? Well, she did. And guess what? That didn't work, because a lot of people love taking drugs.
By the way, beth S and Beth T don't do drugs. Alright, moving on Bill Hurley, the movie's bad guy, if you can call him that, he was played by Rick Zumbwald, who was an honest to goodness, professional arm wrestler. In as much as that can be a profession, zumbwald was also an actor. He played the tattooed strong man in Batman Returns, a movie reviewed on this podcast, season 18, episode 3. He has a long list of TV credits and he later went on to perform as a strong man in Cirque du Soleil.
Over the top was shot from June to August in 1986. The movie features a military academy in Colorado, but that was actually shot at Pennoma College in Claremont, california. Robert Loja, the rich grandpa in the movie. He lives in a mansion that may look familiar to fans of the 1960 sitcom, the Beverly Hillbillies, a sitcom where no First Lady showed up to tell you to not do drugs. They knew to stay in their lane. Keep it out of politics. It comes when I need to hear your preachy nonsense.
Don't do drugs, by the way, beth, that's Beth T, seriously don't do drugs. All right, there were some scenes that were shot in Monument Valley, which we last visited in this podcast, with Thelma and Louise rolling along in their Thunderbird Golan. The film's director and producer knew that this movie also needed a soundtrack that would sell a lot of copies, chock full of hit pop songs, so that they could make some more money.
Remember this was during a time when people bought soundtrack albums with hit songs on them that were inescapable through the constant repetitive airplay of these songs on the radio and on MTV. The over-the-top soundtrack featured two hit songs, including Sammy Hagar's Winner Takes All and the king of the soundtrack Pop Hits, mr Kenny Loggins with Meet Me Halfway.
The soundtrack also featured singles from Eddie Money, asia Cheap Trick frontman Robin Xander and, of course, perpetual Norm MacDonald punchline. Frank Stallone as much as Over the Top was marketed as rocky, but with arm wrestling it's really not that at all. It's mostly just a road trip movie with a little arm wrestling thrown in here and there, which turned out didn't really matter because nobody really went to see this movie. It hits theaters in February, over Presidents Day weekend.
And it came in fourth place, ouch, right behind number three, mannequin starring Andrew McCarthy and Kim Cattrall, about a guy who falls in love with a possessed department store Mannequin, weirdo. Number two that week was Outrageous Fortune starring Beth Midler and Shelley Long. Remember when Shelley Long could star in movies? That was a long time ago. And the number one movie that week was Oliver Stone's Vietnam War film Platoon starring Charlie Sheen.
Remember when Charlie Sheen could star in sitcoms? Bet Nancy Reagan would never go to his sitcom. Tell everybody don't do drugs. It laughed her ass right off the set. Let's get back to Over the Top. The movie pulled in five million bucks opening weekend and ended up making around 16 million bucks overall, domestic and international. Reportedly, stallone was playing 12 million to be in the movie, running the production cost to about 25 million.
Now look, I'm not that great in math, but it doesn't sound like this movie did too well financially. This disastrous response was driven in part by the critical response, which was mostly not kind, as the majority of critics cited how it was a pale imitation of the Rocky movie formula, but only with arm wrestling Well duh. Other critics said the movie was just a feature-length music video because it's one montage after another with a rock ballad playing in the background.
I cannot argue with that. When the two iconic film reviewers Ciskel and Ebert discussed the movie's merits on their very popular movie review TV show At the Movies, the two film critics spent a notable amount of time discussing Sylvester Stallone's son Mike in the film Ghost of Roger Ebert. What was one of the questions you had about the relationship between Sylvester Stallone and his estranged son Mike?
One of the questions that I had all during this movie was why Stallone didn't haul off and belt that kid all the way across the room.
Ghost of Gene Ciskel. Do you think the film spends too much time on the relationship between Stallone and his young son, mike the kid?
occupies probably two-thirds of the picture and the kid is clawing. Obnoxious, not a good actor.
Why don't you tell us how you really feel A movie review that encourages child abuse as a remedy to make it better and openly calls out a child actor for his terrible performance. Kudos to you too. You know, at the Movies with Ciskel and Ebert. That's where Bo and I learned to review movies. And speaking of Mr Bo Rand's role, what say we? Get him in here to hold hands, slap on the strap and do a little sweaty palm wrestling.
Ladies and gentlemen, beth Esses and Beth Tees, turn those trucker hats around and let's get ready to fumble. It's 1987's Father and Son 18-Wheelin Road Trip Movie. Over the top and welcome to Pick Six Movies. I'm Chad Cooper and, as always, I'm joined by the man with whom I settle most disagreements with aggressive hand-holding. Mr Bo Rand's little boat. How are you doing today?
I couldn't be more ready. I've already turned my hat around. The switch has been flipped. I'm in Podcaster mode. I'm a podcasting machine, Chad.
Did you put on the strap? Did you strap it on? Did you put your strap on?
I did, but that is unrelated to the podcast recording. That's the only fan I'm running at the same time because, I like to combine my interests.
I know that you do. This was a viewer submission, although technically it's a movie that I picked according to the logbooks here at Pick Six Movies. But I don't like this movie very much and the word around the Pick Six Movies office, bo, is that you have a not-so-secret affinity for this horrible, horrible movie. I do.
I don't think this is a good movie. Let me say that from the beginning. This is one of those things where I saw this movie a ton as a kid, and I like it because it reminds me of those summers spent just wasting time in the den of my house watching movies, instead of going outside into the hateful sun. I like it for the same reason that you like that mole on your leg, which is not to say that it's attractive or even healthy, but it's always been with you.
And it's probably going to kill you someday. This movie's terrible for two reasons.
Bo. Only two, I'm shocked. Okay, the script and the direction.
That it exists and I watched it.
No.
First off, it's just boring. Nothing really happens in this movie. Second to that, it's about an arm wrestling competition. Yeah, this is one step higher than competitive rock paper scissors.
OK, so getting real about this for a moment, please. The thing that I like about this movie and I didn't realize this until I watched it again because I hadn't seen this movie in 30 years before we did it for the show and the thing I realized when I was watching I was like oh, this is terrible. Well, it's terrible, but the reason I really responded to this movie is because it's a father-son story and those tend to affect me, especially when I was a kid Right.
And so, watching this again, I was like, oh, I totally understand why this movie appealed to me on such a base level. The themes of it did, even if the execution of it is, admittedly, terrible Gotcha. So I liked it for that reason. And watching it again, I still kind of liked it, not even because of the thematic reasons that I just mentioned, but because it's just so dumb, and it's so dumb in a way that I really respond to Like this is my kind of canon films.
It vibrates at a frequency of stupid that I really enjoy. Like this and Invasion USA are not fundamentally different movies in terms of their approach to films Like. Invasion USA is a billion times better for any number of reasons, but there's something equally stupid about both.
They're always trying really hard, but they're not really trying that hard at all. It's like going to see a middle school theater production at Christmas. They're giving it their all. They just don't have a whole lot to give.
And, if I can build on that for a second, it's like when the local high school puts on a production of like Alien or something, where it's like I've seen the good version of this and what I'm watching now is not it, but I recognize all the beats of the thing that made it good, and that's how I feel about Over the Top. Over the Top is a terrible, terrible movie, but I see all the beats of what would make a good movie in it. Right, it just doesn't ever work.
It's like you should just go watch the movie Chef.
Right.
Watch the movie Chef or Finding Nemo the Champ.
Or just like Rocky you know because there's some DNA in this of Rocky, as you mentioned in your introduction, this sort of you know, sports adjacent movie. The guy just trying to make a connection with somebody in this it's his kid and Rocky it's Adrian.
You see all of that in there and this just gets it all wrong because the kid's terrible and nothing happens and it's just a bunch of montages and you go from zero to 60 in the third act for no good reason and like none of it comes together at all. But I found it mostly because the movie is, you know, 90 minutes long.
It's barely 90 minutes, Like if it's standing on its tippy toes and puffing out its chest. It's an hour 29. Once you clip off credits.
So on that level too it's kind of watchable because it's sort of a blink and it's over with kind of movie, even though nothing happens at it. But when it happens like things happen in the movie and you're like wait a second, what's going on now? Because we've been dicking around for 15 minutes and all of a sudden a major plot point happens and is quickly glossed over and it's tremendous.
I wonder what it would be like to watch this movie knowing nothing about it, like if someone just handed it to you because you're cruising along and it's not until like 15 plus minutes into the movie that they even mentioned arm wrestling.
Right, if you kind of Alex delarge someone where you put them in the chair with the, the pry eyes open and like all right, I'm going to wet your eyeballs and you just tell me at what point you think you know what this movie is about.
Let's jump into it. So our movie starts off and we get your favorite production company, Canon Film Logo and we immediately get hit with a pop song and a montage featuring Eddie Money singing in this country. And it's got all of the classic 80s synthesized keyboard and synthesized drums. There are shots of the majestic Rocky Mountains. It reminded me of those old Bud Light real American hero commercials.
You know that like here's to you White trash bigot who takes all your cases of beer and you shoot it with an AK 47 and film it and put it on tiktok because you hate people and different than you, real American hero.
I like that this movie also starts with an MGM logo that fades into a Canon Films logo, which is a real mixed message kind of thing of like. Wait a second, I thought this was a real movie for a second. They definitely had to lead with MGM. Well, you don't start with Canon. For whatever reason, this season, like our running theme, has been majestic vistas of the Southwest.
It's kind of crazy that that accidentally happened. And you know, when you think about road movies, is that just kind of where you go, or maybe that's just what was close to California, right, like let's just head out to Nevada or Utah, that's close enough they got tax breaks yeah, we go two hours outside the city and we got ourselves a set.
Yeah, and there's also cut into this. We get to our shitty kid of the movie, mike, who is on parade at this military academy.
Is it a military academy or is it a prep school?
I. It's a military school.
But a military school is where you send troubled kids that need to be like beaten into submission. It had the dressings of a military academy but with all the rich you rich is running around, I was like I think this might be more of a prep school.
Maybe so, but they have their own army, which I don't know. Many prep schools that have a standing army, although that doesn't surprise me. In the coming class wars Chad, do you?
remember the pickup trucks in the high school that we went to. Oh yeah, I think that there was a militia ready to take up arms, based on what I saw hanging in the rear windows. I remember going to our high school and this wasn't that long ago, and there were fellow students that we went to school with that had guns hanging in the window of their pickup truck on school property.
Yeah, this was pre every week at a school shooting.
This was before Columbine. Yeah, that was when you could still carry a gun to school. I remember being a kid because my mom was a school teacher and there was a smoking section at the high school where she taught.
Mm, hmm.
Yeah, kids could go outside and legit smoke.
This coincided with like there were still smoking sections on airplanes and sure in some ways it was a more innocent and free time Right, and in some ways it was really fucking stupid.
When this opening sequence happens with the shots of the military prep school, we also get shots of Sylvester Stallone driving his 18 wheeler, you know, through the majestic Rockies or wherever. And we do see Stallone and he's got this three day stubble and he gets his name above the credits, rightfully so. But then our second billing is Robert Losia.
That makes me happy to be. I love Robert Losia.
Yeah.
And see when was the last time you saw his name second building, anything? Look, I didn't get name above the title, but I'm right next door to it. You know what I'm saying.
This is the only time he got second billing Not that he shouldn't have got it, but I don't. I can't think of anything else.
I'm a big star.
They roll through the main actors and actresses and it ends with and David Mendell Hall as Michael or Mike, whichever one you want to call it. And then the movie just kind of pivots into that. I know I bitch about this a lot unnecessary credits, because this whole montage doesn't really do anything to really really set up the story. But it starts giving a shit like edited by, and I was like nobody cares who edited this movie.
I get that editing can make or break a film, but it doesn't need to be in the opening credits.
Unless it's what's? What's the editor that Scorsese uses all the time?
Martha Schumacher, something like that You're proving my point. Nobody knows. You know, I don't need to see. Like sometimes you can throw out executive producer If it's like Spielberg or Scorsese. You know like, oh, they're behind this, this is going to be quality, but nobody really cares what I'm just, I'm really on a crusade to end opening movie credits.
I want to make them 30 percent longer. All right, this movie does let you know right away that we are going to begin, and, and everything in between is going to be a montage in this film Lots of montages.
That's how they get that one hour 28 minute runtime. During this opening montage we see Stallone deliver this piece of heavy machinery. Then he goes over and he's washing his truck and I'm like man, this is some captivating storytelling, bow. And then at this military school it's their end of your graduation or some sort of ceremony to go home for the summer. The movie cuts back to Stallone at the truck wash and bow. He bends over and starts washing his own face out of this bowl of dirty water.
And then you see him brushing his teeth at the truck stop and I felt so sad for this guy.
It's a real horse, Beth. He cleaned the truck better than himself.
Have you ever worked with people who brush their teeth in the workplace bathroom?
No that seems like crazy Perk.
It's nuts man Like I'm all in favor of hand washing Absolutely and I judge you if you don't wash your hands and, like you, can splash all cool water on your face. You have a rough day but you start brushing your teeth at work. I mean, I fully expect to wash cloth and horse bath to follow that.
Sure.
I'm glad you haven't had to experience that.
Not that I recall, but also I make it pretty clear early on anytime that I'm working with people that I don't want to know anything about their personal lives or their personal habits.
I just thought maybe you took jobs at places that discouraged oral hygiene. So in the first three minutes of this movie we again are getting a musical montage and this captivating visual storytelling without any dialogue.
You know not since.
Chaplin in modern times? Have I been drawn into a movie where the actors emote with such depth?
at this academy, everybody is throwing their hats up in the air as they're graduating from I don't know fourth grade or whatever. The only kid who doesn't throw his hat up in the air is Mike, who we will learn is Stallone's kid.
I thought you were going to say a piece of shit.
He looks around for somebody to show up like I'm trying to celebrate my graduation. But no, it's around Sly, of course, not anywhere near like he is still showing up at the gate. One of my favorite things in the movie is when he shows up and the guy at the guard track is like yeah, deliveries are in the back deadbeat. He's like, oh no, I got a kid here, I promise.
After they let him in, we get more of this montage that we see, as we see Stallone driving his semi truck and parking it at the school. Again, I was captivated by the film. And he goes inside and he's wearing he's wearing a button down shirt and a tie and suspenders and he has pleated pants. And all the parents and kids outside the school they're staring at him as if they're extras in a movie and they didn't know that it was going to star Sylvester Stallone.
And he just shows up on the set because they're not looking down their snooty, rich noses at him. It's more a look of hey, is that the guy from Planet Hollywood?
Hey, is that the guy who's going to be in demolition man in a few years? A much better movie. Is that Sylvester?
Stallone or Frank Stallone? Maybe it's both. Wait, who's on the soundtrack? Mike walks over to this limousine and there's a driver standing outside and he says is this the limousine for Michael Cutler? And the driver's like yes, sir, your rich grandfather, robert Lozier, will be arriving at the airport in about an hour. And then somebody off in the distance shouts out hey, michael, the colonel wants to see you. And Mike says yes, sir, right away.
Sir, you there, man servant, stand by this limousine and ask anyone who passes if they're Michael Cutler. When they say no, tell them this is Michael Cutler's limousine. Wealth doesn't flaunt itself in the faces of others. I'll be right back.
So Mike goes in to the curtles office and waiting inside is Stallone in his suspenders and denim shirt. Get up.
I was shocked he wasn't wearing a rope belt Right.
You know, like the tarp for a shirt, like he does in First Blood With a napkin tucked in his neck. The colonel is like Michael, this is your father, sylvester Stallone. He smells like dirty car wash water. I think he bathed in a bird bath. What I have. No, father sir Stallone, is like hey look, that's fed. It is unclear, but I don't think you and I have really ever spent any time together, so your mother asked me to drive you home.
The kid- says I need to see some identification and he's ready for this, yeah, and he reaches at this manila envelope that he's had the whole time, opens it up and just shows a picture of him and the kid's mother, like on their wedding day.
It's me on the left in the tuxedo. This is your mama on the right, she in the picture. She's not looking all sickly and pasty white the way you might have seen over the last few months. Scala Mocullo, it's in this picture. She thinks she's got decades to live, not like now where we're touching gold most of the days. But you look surprised right now. And nobody talked to this kid about what was going on with mom. Oh, hey, hey, Mike, Mike, your mom's going to live like 100 years.
All right, Forget everything I just said.
Mike grandfather told me to go home with no one but my mother or him, and the curl is like. But you know, it turns out that he doesn't have custody or anything. So your mother was the one who said you've got to go with this weirdo and I'm sorry, it's out of my hands, kid. Yeah, I wish I could tell you you could go in the limo, but instead you got to go with this guy.
Yeah, so they walk out to his semi truck and still on.
So you're like this is my truck. Oh, it's nothing too fancy, what was going driving?
Mike says you can't make up 10 years. In two or three days I can climb into this rusty bucket of bolts all by myself with this arguably total stranger.
Yeah, who, by the way, Stallone, as he's circling the cab to get in on the other side, takes off his clip on time, because of course it's a clip on. Yeah, when he gets in this truck. This kid looks around in its wall-to-wall pictures of him at various points in his life him, or him and his mom Right.
It's the kind of thing a stalker would have.
This is the cab of a truck driving serial killer.
If I'm Mike, I have a lot of questions. But Mike just kind of looks around with this expression. It's like, hmm, I wonder who all of these children are that looks somewhat like me.
You know, I've noticed one thing this truck is disgusting.
It smells like horse and failed dreams.
And so it's like well, I can tell you that you know, I used to want to get a truck of my own and maybe start my own company. And the kids like, oh, let me just stop you there, father, I don't care about you, this truck or anything, how about you get me to my mother? We don't have to make conversation clear.
I don't think they explicitly say they're going to see his mom. I think he just gets the truck and they're going for a ride or they're going on a trip. I mean, I watch this thing twice and it's inferred but it is not stated. We need you to drive to go see the mom until much later again, if you're watching this movie without knowing what's going on. He just gets in this truck with this grown man and off, they're gonna go somewhere.
There's a lot in this script that's like there needed to be a line to make this a little clearer. Yeah and it's only because I've seen this movie 47 times that I understand what the beats of the movie are. But there is nothing, as you pointed out, to suggest that they're going anywhere in particular at this point.
Yeah, I mean Mike the kid. He is an intentional asshole and I think the intent of the filmmakers was to position him as a spoiled kid who gets to know his dad and then kind of Becomes a regular kid. But that's not what happens at this movie. He's just a rich asshole who starts out in Colorado and ends up a rich asshole in Las Vegas.
That's one of the big problems of the movie is that it ends in a place where he doesn't have to suffer at all.
No, he doesn't learn anything, he doesn't really do anything.
But he does ask excuse me, father, and I'm putting that in quotation marks, even if I'm not doing it with my fingers, I think you can hear it in my voice Um, how did you get all these pictures of?
me, you weirdo your mom's. You sent them to me, see, I wrote the letters and asked you for pictures of you as you sent them over to me. I thought about Colorado on the phone, but you know it never really don't care. A lot of loose change in my pocket and I don't have a phone because I'm on the road all the time. But even really to be told I'm more of a fan of classical, you know, epistolary communication. I like pleasures of the written language.
It's more romantic that way Also, you know, I just want to know how you were growing up, and there is nothing that is less suspicious when a cop pulls you over on a Long-haul trucking situation that pictures wall-to-wall of little boys.
It looks like. Have you ever been into a dive bar where they put up pictures of their favorite drunk patrons Like it's? Yeah, that's what it looks like for sure the only way this would have made sense if the pictures weren't of Mike, but they were Pornography, like if it was naked women, then a cop's not gonna blink an eye. Yes, you pull over a guy and he's got pictures of kids from age zero to ten. You're going downtown for questioning sir.
You're gonna have to answer a few questions, for sure.
Mike gets all pissed off when he hears that he'd written letters to the mom and he says if you were writing so many letters to my mother, how come I never got a letter?
I never got a single birthday card still, and it looks legitimately confused by this. He's like Mike. Well, you talking about that, I wrote you like a million times.
You see cars on birthday, christmas cards, hanukkah cards I didn't know you'd be in raises. I see cars on St Patrick Day, definitely. So you're calling Columbus Day. Well, it's your national French Friday. I love French fries all the days, mikey.
You see cars all the time and Mike is just like well, I never got any of them. Can you pull over? I'm feeling a little sick, father. Yeah, as soon as Stallone pulls over, this kid fucking makes a break, for it Just starts hauling ass across the road and is he trying to kill himself Like?
is he saying like death is preferable over spending time with this gentle, kind older man because there's heavy traffic on the interstate? It's not dissimilar from like level 10 of Frogger.
Well, I was gonna say that moment from last of the Mohicans, the Michael Mann version, where the girl just like Circles to the edge of the cliff and hurls herself off, while West's duty is like no, no, no, come with me into a life of servitude. Yeah, so this kid is hauling ass across a busy highway. Stallone tackles him again.
Nothing garners the attention of the police more like a young child running away from a man who tackles him and puts him in a half no yeah, as the child screams stop it, stop it.
I hate you.
You're not my father.
If I see that boat, I'm calling the cops, or I'm at least thinking about calling the cops, because it's the thought that counts really.
Or I'm thinking about that movie where I saw a guy call the cops when he saw something like this, and then I get distracted, trying to remember what movie that was.
Stallone and Mike head back to the truck so they can keep being estranged. And then the movie cuts to Robert lozha and his lawyer.
Henchmen, they're at the military academy and Robert lozha says I thought you said you took care of it, and by it I mean Stallone and I took care of it.
I mean murdered him in teowanna. Forget it, forget it, you two idiots.
When the colonel is like, look, I couldn't do anything. You know, his mother has custody. She was the one who asked me to release him into the hands of Stallone, don't you understand my daughter's in no condition to make that kind of decision.
She's barely in the movie. I'm Robert lozha. I was in Scarface jagged edge Pritzys. Honor the sopranos, for God's sake.
You leave me no choice but to take this up with the board.
Yeah, I didn't fly here to be told that you turned my grandson over to that worthless Pardon, my fridge bastard. I'm bringing this up with the board of directors. Rocco Loblo, let's get out of here.
If there is one thing that Robert lozha suggests just as a person, it's that he's always worried how other people are going to receive the language he uses.
Pardon my french.
But I'm gonna have to ram my cock up your cherry ass. I'm gonna make sure that I get it so deep. You taste in the tip Pardon my french.
So Robert lozha and crew they leave. One of the things I wanted to note here is that his bodyguard or whatever is Terry funk, who was a professional wrestler. He was featured in that documentary beyond the mat and apparently he and Stallone were close friends in real life and I guess that's why he got a role in the movie. If I ever get a chance to make my movie about competitive tic-tac-tobo, I'm gonna cast you as cab driver number two. Oh, thank you the one who has the heart of gold.
Do I get a line?
Yeah, it's someone call the cops. I think that man's gonna rape that child.
All right, I'll start working on it now. Yeah, someone call the cops, I think that guy.
Someone call the cops, I think all right, I got it All right.
We're back in the truck and Stallone says to Mike hey, uh, I'm sorry I ripped your fancy little dressings, your little soldier jacket, when I was trying to keep you from getting hit by that car sleeve. It looks like it's all ripped off and Mike says it's not a problem, you'll get the bill to replace it.
Hey, go ahead and send me a bill. I don't pay none of the others, so why would I pay this one? Hey, uh, listen, I'm a little hungry. After chasing you down through traffic and arguing with you and you telling me you hate me or whatnot, I'm gonna stop and get a steak. You want a steak?
Uh, sir, you are going to be the victim of cholesterol poisoning and later in life You're just going to rot away.
You talking about me. You talking about your mom, mom, my mommy a papa. Pia Baby got the diarrhea. Hey, you forget what I said about your mom. Let's get some steak and we're not going to talk about who has parents that are probably going to rot away and die Someday within the next two, three days. That subject matters off the table.
I also like the fact that Salode at one point just shuts the kid down. It's like, hey, no, you're full of sunshiny information, aren't you? Just shut up you shithead, but then go ahead and this kid.
This isn't a montage, but we do get the song bad night by Frank Stallone playing on the jukebox. I didn't pay attention to any of that, unfortunately when they enter this restaurant, truck stop, bar, honky tonk, people refer to Stallone's character as link and hawk because his name is link and hawk, but in the movie they call him Lincoln, link hawk, hawks. I think I heard someone shout out the hawk man, I'm like, pick a name. That's why we're just calling him Stallone in this review.
This movie has one of these sloppy of scripts that we have dealt with. If it can't even consistently get the name of its central character correct, Like what are we supposed to do with this?
So once inside.
Stallone says so. Mike, you like this place. You see everybody here. They wear denim shirts and plaid shirts. They all got baseball caps and drinking bubba's beer. Even though it's like 11 am, they're all gonna go outside, get behind the wheel of their five ton trucks. Little buzz, stick the edge, fall that uh under the counter Adderall and riddling they pop to stay awake at night. It's pretty nice place. Do you ever think that, mike?
Yeah, I'm just wondering if they take the meth to stave off the effects of the alcohol they're consuming or if that's just a little sprinkling on the cupcake and you know, sir, I've never been a fan of the zoo.
Implying that all of these people in there animals bow. That's what he said.
Sure, yeah, stallone is like well, all right. Uh, hey, waitress, I would like your biggest raw steak, also a baked potato loaded, of course extra cholesterol, extra poison.
Thank you, extra msg.
The kid is like listen, I know you're trying to be healthy by ordering me the chicken and mashed potatoes, but do you understand that that also causes heart disease and in some cases?
cancers. But that was your mom's favorite meal. You're saying, oh, never mind, your mom never ate that meal.
So it's like hey, look, uh, I'll have what the kids having, you know, because he and I are relating to each other right now, just being being buddies and all because he orders tuna salad, whole wheat toast and spring water With lemon.
Uh-huh, mike is such a turd, then this guy shows up. The smash. Ah, he looks like a 70s porn actor on steroids Everybody in this movie other than still.
It's funny because Stallone in this movie I mean he's billed but he doesn't look as Ridiculously over stuffed as he does in later years when he really started juicing no, for modern audiences.
He is captain america. Everyone else in this movie is the incredible hulk.
Yes, and the smash Uh shows up and he says hey, you hawk or link, or hawks are linking hawks. Any of those chain?
link. Lincolnator, you are the missing link. Goodbye. Did you ever watch that show? I watched it.
I got a few names. Yeah, I hear that you're the man to beat. I got a thousand dollars that says I can rip your arm off.
You can't believe everything that you hear.
The smasher and the smasher says I don't, I don't believe everything I hear. I was like what?
and Mike is like uh, father, are you and this gentleman going to fight?
because arm wrestling has not been mentioned.
Right. So it's like look, you know I enjoy our discussions and all but right now I can't talk to you. I gotta go to work, yeah daddy's gotta work away.
So he walks into the back room and everyone's getting all hyped up and Stallone takes off his long-sleeved denim shirt to reveal A tight white t-shirt and he has his suspenders on, of course and he puts his trucker hat on. That reads Beno, which I'm still not sure if this is a real company or not. I spent way too much time trying to track this down. There is a company called Beno that has gas stations in California, but I couldn't connect the dots if it's real or not.
Long story short, I accidentally ordered like 19 hats from Etsy and amazon and some independent seller out of japan. I think like I spent a fortune.
I know what I'm getting for my birthday this year. Yes, you're getting 18 of those. Oh nice. As we pointed out just recently, I do love hats.
Stallone heads to the back room to do something and even larger man steps into the doorway of this establishment. He's like six foot five. He looks like a big toe with legs, like he's wearing aviator glasses. He's got the foo man shoe mustache bull hurley. He peeks in the door to see what's going on. I was like maybe he's here for some of this famous steak. But you're like, okay, he's gonna be the guy in the finale.
It's essentially the same shot from rocky 3 when mr T was peeking his head up like act 1 or 2 of that movie before he became the Antagonist. He's like showing up at matches, like what's going on here? Oh, I pity the fool who ain't here for act 3, that rocky 3. That's a good movie. What's your favorite? What's your favorite rocky?
the first one, obviously. I mean that's the one that's actually a human drama and is actually good, and then behind that probably rocky belbow. I really enjoyed that, but as a bit of a swan song to the series, yeah, belbow is good. The creed movies are pretty good too.
I saw the first one and I didn't see two or three, and the first one just felt like a copy paste of rocky Balboa just go in and do all the things that rocky movies do, but for this other character.
I mean, that's essentially what's happening about. Like Michael B Jordan a lot and there are some nice moments Like cre2 is sort of the bowing out of Stallone in that franchise and there's a nice moment with him and it's a Wallace Beery wrestling picture botan. Yeah, but that's I mean, that's kind of what the movies are is. Here's the formula and just do that and in a lot of ways over the top is that formula, but all the proportions are wrong completely.
All right, so let's get back into this. So we're in the back of this honky tonk restaurant truck stop, bar bull hurley, who shows up in the doorway. Things get real uncomfortable because everybody's in the back now, except for Mike, who's sitting at the counter service Waiting for his tuna salad, wheat toast and spring water with lemon.
Bull hurley, this like mountain of a man, walks over to Mike, this 10 year old child who's the only one in the room, and he puts his giant manpaw around this tiny little hand of this kid and he says what are you doing with that guy?
And I was like oh my god.
And then Mike tells this total stranger he's my father and bull says that's too bad.
Am I the only one getting pedophile vibes here? It's uncomfortable, to say the least. Yeah, a waitress should be calling the cops, like they ought to be doing the hitcher here, where they're just immediately calling the police.
Yeah and then we cut to the back room where, here we see the smasher and Stallone start to arm wrestle and yes at first bow it looks like the smasher is going to win, but then Stallone adjusts his fingers slightly and rewraps them, and then Stallone wins.
It's captivating it becomes a thing that doesn't make any sense within the course of the film. Whatever this magic grip he has that supposedly makes him a better arm wrestler I don't know, but he slams smasher's arms down to the table and bull our pedophile Apparently shows up and is like hey, how about we go? Double a nothing Stallone.
That doesn't seem fair. Stallone just finished arm wrestling this other guy. He's tuckered and this giant guy wants to go double or nothing.
And so I was like, hey, I guess we just gotta have to wait till Vegas, which is like in the third act of the movie, and all yeah. When he comes out of this back room, mike is waiting for him, apparently having guzzled down his spring water with lemon and Tune up on whole wheat right, and is like you're a hustler, I'm gonna call mom.
First off, stallone didn't hustle anybody. The smasher came in and initiated the challenge and Stallone accepted there was no hustle. The odds were clearly not in Stallone's favor. He didn't cheat. Mike just sucks and has no street smarts.
I would like to point out this is exactly the speech Oliver Platt gives in digs town. I did not ask any of you to place a bet. You asked me.
If you haven't seen digs town and you don't know anything about it, fire it up wherever you can get it and just let it play.
You will not be disappointed one of the all-time great Brewster and performances as well.
Yeah, check out digs town. Yeah. So Mike is so pissed off. He goes to call his mom, christina, who we now see for the first time. She's in the hospital and we kind of assume she's dying. And Mike tells his mom I know you wanted me to do this, but I don't even know this strange man. He left you, mother, and his truck stinks like failed dreams and road whores, christina. The mom says Mike is your father. He had reasons for leaving us. All right, excuse me, nurse, I need another napkin.
This one's full of blood. Um, it never it's not gonna be explained in this movie, mikey, why he left us. But trust me, he had his good reasons. Okay, you gotta assume that maybe he knew you were gonna be a total asshole like your grandpa. That kind of skips a generation and he won't be around you so much. I'm not blaming you, but he probably had good reasons.
Oh my god, so much blood. It's one of the more pitiful, all the pitiful representations of a woman dying from one presumed cancer. Do they ever say that?
No, they don't explain anything. They don't explain why Stallone left. I mean, if he's such a good guy, why would he leave his family? Here's how you make this movie less worse. Oh, all right this is always exciting. Yes, so one you start the movie with Stallone driving his truck and you immediately go into a scene where he's arm wrestling a dude. Okay, so we introduce arm wrestling early on and that he wins.
Then we find out that there is a woman named Christina who's been trying to reach him via the phone or maybe a couple of letters. Okay, like she's called the company that he gets trucking jobs for and she says hey, look, it's me, christina.
And he's like I haven't moved you like 10 years how you doing.
She's like I need to tell you something you have a son. He's in Colorado. I would like for you to go pick him up and drive him to me, because I'm sick and I'm dying, and he agrees to do this. Shows up, the kids are rich asshole. During their travels we introduced a second arm wrestling scene where we see Stallone kind of building up like at a more legit Competition, not just something in the back of a restaurant and it's kind of we're moving towards the, the vaguest thing.
And then during the travels we have Stallone and Mike the kid get to know one another. And then it comes out that Robert Loja paid off Stallone to leave his daughter alone and he gave him the 18 wheeler that he's driving in now because the dad knew the girl was pregnant and he didn't want Stallone to be in the picture. But Stallone didn't know. So Stallone, he agrees to take the truck and then he leaves. Then we bring these two back together.
They go to see the mom, the kid gets to see the mom before she dies. She dies. Stallone goes to Vegas, the kid goes to Vegas and we end the movie. Okay, that is a real movie and you really focus on the two of them getting to know each other. He didn't have a father, him talking about his grandpa or whatever else, and then he's like, hey, this dude's really good. And then when his mother dies, he's like, hey, I got a chance to be with my real father, who I didn't know that I had.
And it all works much, much better. Because In this movie it's never explained where they're driving to. That's never explained. How is she dying? They're like, oh, by the way, she's dead. That just happens out of the blue, right, she didn't make it.
Make it. What into what? The rest of the movie right me While she's like. You've got to be patient with him because your father's a moron, mike, and you've just got to work with Him a little bit. I did, but mom, he's terrible. He was arm wrestling in the back of her room.
He ordered mashed potatoes, mother, with gravy Gravy. That's my favorite food.
It's potatoes with gravy. So much blood. And she asked to talk to Stallone, who is standing near the phone, and he gets on the phone with her. He's like, hey, how you doing.
I mean, besides you know the fact that you're dying and whatnot, you having a pretty good day. Besides all that, how's Mike doing?
Um, he's being very helpful. I have to admit. He's pointing out a lot of dietary problems that I've been having. I think maybe if I follow his rules, that I won't have the shits as much, and that would be great, because I got to tell you, mike, my cab just smells to high heaven.
It kind of smells a little bit like failed dreams and road hoes in my farts.
Anyway, so they get back on the road and big trouble is singing. All I Need Is you on the radio and they're pulling an 18-wheeler full of brute aftershave lotion, brute by Faber J.
Let me tell you, speaking of childhood memories, this was the shitty cologne of my father. Oh was it. Oh yeah, my dad wore polo Remember that one that's slightly classier than brute, which came in the green plastic bottle and smelled like a cat house. Remember those polo bottles?
with the guy riding the polo horse, of course, polo the sport of kings, the aftershave of lower middle class, that's what I wear all the time.
A little dash behind the ear.
As they're riding in the truck, mike reaches up and just click, turns off the radio. And then Stallone reaches up and click, turns it back on. Mike turns it off, Stallone turns it on. It goes back and forth and back and forth until Mike says um sir, may I ask you a question, are you still dealing drugs? Because that's what my grandfather said.
You're a drug dealer and Stallone says hey, no, I never did any of the things your grandfather said about dealing drugs. All right, babe, do you ever watch that very special episode? Different Strokes Well, the drug dealer selling drugs to them kids. You look familiar, by the way, former first lady Nancy Reagan. She came on she said don't do drugs. And ever since then I don't do drugs. Unless you count human growth hormone and testosterone. I don't count those, so I don't do drugs.
I mean, you saw, a lot of people on drugs back at the steakhouse, but not me.
Stay out of the glove box also, all right. Your birthday presents in there, all right, so don't go in it.
There's a couple of envelopes under the gun in there. Don't look through them.
If you find any bottles rolling around the floor with people's names on them they're on Sylvester Stallone or Lincoln Hawk or something like that. I don't know how they got here and if we get pulled over, put those in your pocket.
Look, kid, I never did what your grandfather said I did, unless he said I was awesome, in which case I did exactly what he said I did. But my big mistake was just leaving you and your mom. I just I messed up. I shouldn't have done that.
Speaking of which, we got to Robert Loja and he's in his daughter, christina's hospital room because she's dying. Robert Loja tells her Christina, I'm not angry that you called.
Sylvester Stallone to drive home with our son. I mean your son, but I am disappointed. Stallone's no good. He doesn't belong with us. I know you're worried about leaving Michael alone after you die.
But it'll be safe here with me and former professional wrestler Terry Funk and that other guy who's always hanging around. You just need to rest up. You've only got one more scene in this movie before you die off screen.
Look, also let me talk to this doctor over here. Look, doctor, if that is your real name, yeah, it is. I want to know who calls this room on the private line. Yes, also my stoolies over here, terry Funk and the other one. You go find my grandson, or else I will eat you whole. I mean it. I will unhinge my jaw like a snake and I will eat you and shit you out. Find that boy. Pardon my French, see who play.
So we got to Stallone and Mike. They're on the road and day turns tonight this is our first day together and they pull over to sleep in the truck and Mike says you know, father, if you can sleep in the truck, then I can sleep in the truck. And then Mike takes off his neck tie, which is not a clip on.
And Stallone says hey, mike, you know, if you get a little so you can sleep with you head on my shoulder, use it as a pillow. And then I was.
I was even more bothered by the fact that Mike is coming around to liking Sylvester Stallone. They've been together maybe 12 hours and the kids have been a total asshole the whole film. What, at this point, made him decide to like Sylvester Stallone?
It's a fine question, chad. There is no reason for him to suddenly be okay with his dad, and yet he is. He is just suddenly like, oh, I'm okay with this guy.
The next day they wake up and do some early morning calisthenics as Kenny Loggan sings the power ballad Meet Me Half Way, which you're going to hear a lot in this movie. And the sun's coming up and these two are doing like jumping jacks and toe touches and push ups and they're doing this weird arm pull off the truck. I guess that's to show that they're working their bicep for future arm wrestling.
And then Stallone goes over and rips the other sleeve off Mike's military jacket, making it look like a tough guy vest.
So I had to take off this other sleeve. But you know, now you look like kind of a bruise. I think it's going to be pretty good.
How much did you like that during this montage of them driving, you see Stallone and Mike having conversations but we have no idea what they're talking about. It seems like that's kind of important right To hear what they're sharing, to make them bond.
Right. Here's the thing that makes Mike suddenly love his father, but you don't need to worry about that. The important thing is you know that Mike now loves his father. It's skipping over the important part.
Also, stallone has rigged up this weightlifting contraption in his truck that lets him work out his arm wrestling muscles while he drives.
He's like hey, mike, why don't you try it out? It's not too hot.
And then Mike, this asshole kid says you know, father, there's more to life than just muscles. I don't see any books in your truck. You don't read much, do you? Or can you even read? Do you know the difference between letters and numbers? No offense, but you're on a different social scale. It's not to his dad.
I really like that. Stallone kind of gives him some shit here, right? Oh well, I'm sorry, I realize that such an intellectual riding with me, I'm very grateful, you know, for all your keen insight and your intellect.
You're welcome. Well, it has been said that the average mental age of an adult is 15, which is only three years older than me. I would assume for a trucker such as yourself, it's probably around 11 to 13 years old, maybe 14 if they have good genetics. And I was like what? I got a feeling. Mike cannot only define eugenics. He's probably got a plan on how it should be put into practice.
For sure, this kid has read a lot of the works of Nazi doctors of ill repute and found a lot of good ideas.
Father, do you know where the boys are?
You know, the boys from Brazil, father, I'm keeping an eye on them. I believe that, while Hitler, the execution of his plan was poor at best, I believe there are some fine ideas that could push the human race forward into the future.
You sound real smart.
You know what I'm going to pull the truck over here real slow like and then Mike gets scared and he's like Father, you are my father, I'm, you said why are you pulling over? You look aggravated. Are you going to get violent?
with me. No, I'm just going to make sure that you get to do a little bit of work. You know, show me what a smart guy you are, what a genius, because obviously any idiot can drive a truck like this. So you know how about you go ahead and just take over the wheel.
But I've never driven anything. I once drove a dune buggy at the beach, but I've never driven anything this big. Clearly this is impossible, and so the kid gets in the driver's seat and still sounds like.
so Turn the key and push that little button over there.
And then the kid pushes it and 15 seconds later, bow, he's driving this truck proving his point Right that any old idiot could do this.
Because this child, who has driven a dune buggy one time, yes, and a rangatang and kinky boots could drive this thing. Yeah, and so it's just like hey, I guess this wasn't so hard. You know, maybe you're right, maybe maybe you didn't saw a good idea. I tell you what next time we do a montage and we're not really hearing what was saying to each other, why don't you tell me all about?
that. The other thing and we're going to get to this in a minute, but I'm going to get to it now is that the theme song for this movie is Kenny Loggins singing. Meet me halfway, but then he constantly tells the kid in the film hey, the world doesn't meet you halfway.
Mike, which is it?
I'm so glad you brought this up. This drove me fucking crazy watching this movie. I'm like but the song says the other thing. It says to meet you halfway. But, mike, hold on a second, let me talk. Let me talk to the song for a second. Oh, kenny Loggins, I know, I know what I said, but no, it doesn't meet you halfway, rock.
The problem is you got the eye of the tiger. That means you're weak. You got to have the eye of the bull.
Hey, what are you saying? The song tells me I'm supposed to have eye of the. That song doesn't mean anything with a bunch of nannies jumping around in spendings along here. You got to have the eye of the bull and the balls of the bull. Get in there and find them rock.
Mike, you seem to be the smart one here in this truck. Should we be meeting the halfway across the sky over here, or should I be telling you to not ever let somebody meet you halfway? I'll tell you what. I'm confused by everything that's going on in this movie.
All right. The movie cuts to Robert loge and his two lackeys and he says you know, boys, we got to deal with this in another fashion. And then the movie cuts away back to Stallone and Mike. I was like are they going to kill Stallone? If Robert loge says they're going to deal with something in a different fashion, blood will be shed.
Absolutely. If Robert loge says look boys, apparently the legal stuff isn't working, so I'm going to need you to, you know, take the law into your own hands. You understand what I'm trying to tell you here. Kill them, no, no, no, that's not the Robert loge away, but it always has, and that's the whole scene. It's just take care of it, boys, cut to.
Stallone and Mike pull into this diner and when they go in to get breakfast they have in this place an original Mario Brothers stand up video game cabinet and punch out and a pinball machine and a couple other video games in the back and like 10 year old me was like if I went into this place to get breakfast with like my parents I would have been just over the moon.
Everything about breakfast suddenly became me playing the original Mario Brothers video game and punch out, uppercut, uppercut, body blow, body blow. Did you ever beat Mike Tyson's punch out? Of course not, I did. I was awesome at that game. So they go into this totally awesome diner where they have punch out and pinball and a cigarette machine that you can buy smokes for cash Nice.
After the breakfast Stallone and Mike leave and Stallone says yo, mike you feeling pretty strong, why don't you come with me? And they go back into the video game arcade of this place and Stallone approaches this kid who looks to be about four or five years older than Mike. He's a good foot taller than Mike and this kid is wearing fingerless gloves and a vest with no shirt under it. He looks like the stereotypical 80s era white trash hood rat.
And Stallone says to this kid yo excuse me. You boys of arm wrestle Mike. Uh-oh For younger listeners.
If a grown man approaches you asking if you've ever arm wrestled or sumo wrestled or Greco Roman wrestled any form of wrestling you should leave immediately.
Absolutely, especially if your father is the one who's like hey, you boys of arm wrestle, mike, come here for a minute, how about we get some arm wrestling? I think you're really going to enjoy it.
Yeah, you two wrestle. I'm going to take some pictures, all right, while you guys wrestle. All right, you know very special episode of this movie. All right, with Mr Carlson from WKRP. Remember he was a child molester in the different shows. A lot of weird stuff on different strokes. Don't do drugs. Don't have sex with men who work at bicyclists shops. Learn that. Don't get abducted by a weirdo in the mall. Weird times, mikey.
All I know is I need a couple of pictures to replace some of the old ones in the cab, so if I can take a picture of you and other boys together, it's really going to do something good for me, I think.
So Stallone does say to this kid hey, my young friend Mikey, he could probably beat you two out of three times in arm wrestling and I'll give you 10 to one odds.
Mike is wanting nothing to do with this, but Stallone really pushes him into this arm wrestling situation and this strange kid with spiky hair he agrees to it. Mike arm wrestles this kid and the kid easily beats him because he's twice his size. And Mike just runs outside crying you just wanted to embarrass me. My grandpa said you were a loser, and now you want to make me a loser, just like you loser. And then Stallone gives him like a fatherly pep talk.
Look, I know that the song that's been playing in this movie a bunch has really laid you down some wrong roads. But look, you beat yourself that time. I don't mean in the fun way like that, when you thought I was asleep. What I mean is you're a spoiled brat who never had to work for nothing and life ain't gonna meet you halfway, despite what Kenny Loggins has been telling us this whole time. So you got to go in there and you got to go for it.
Go for it that's another little catchphrase in mind from different movie by thinking applies here. So how about we go back in and I'm going to turn your hat around, just like your old man. Then I'm going to take some pictures while you and this boy arm wrestle.
Mike agrees and he goes back inside, they flip the hat and guess what? Bo, mike wins the next two matches and walks away a dollar richer, more full of himself than we even thought possible. I don't think this kid's going to be able to get into the cab of this truck with the size of his ego now. Also, why did they do the best? Two out of three? It should be a one and done. And then the big kid beats him. And then they come back in and Stallone's like, hey, double or nothing.
And then Mike should win that match. And then he walks away a winner, making him win twice in a row. It kind of deflates the triumph of him winning the first time and the second time just feels unnecessary.
Also, this kid is stupid Like he's a child. Stallone is just taking advantage of children at this point. They take this money and then they go to call mom in the hospital.
And this kid totally embellishes his accomplishments when he's on the phone with his mom being encouraged by Stallone, who's given him, like the big fish story sign.
Yeah, as he's like. Mother, you're never going to believe how big this child was. I mean, it was really more of a bear of a man Bigger, you know Well more of an ogre, like. He was seven and a half feet tall and his right arm was the size of a tree trunk. But I beat him anyway, mother, thanks to father. Let me talk to your.
Let me talk to your Be clear to come. Let me talk to your father.
I like the fact that the phone still works after this charge to bring her back to life. She tells Stallone like, no matter what happens, you have to stay with Mike. Try to understand my father, robert Lucia. And so Stallone was like well, I mean, I'll try, but you know he's always trying to get me killed and whatnot, and I find that to be like a personal insult that he's trying to murder me instead of having me raise my own son.
Hey, by the way, do you hear people sneaking up behind you? Cause I think I have people sneaking up behind me. Is that on your end or is that on my end?
Not on my end. I got to go.
And then he turns around to see two goons grab Mike and just disappear with him.
Stallone gives chase in his semi while they're driving a truck and apparently he made his brute delivery because there's no more of the trailer behind him.
Also, there's no way an 18 wheeler or like a tractor, trailer cab is going to catch up to this pickup truck zipping away so quickly.
He heads the truck off at the pass and runs into it. Thankfully he does not run over Mike. No, At the same time the guys just run off as they flee. Stallone is like hey, you told Robert lozha and my boy staying with me over here.
We cut to Robert lozha's place and he's got this new top warrior who comes in and says there's no legal precedent for you getting the custody of Mike after your daughter dies off camera and Robert lozha screams out find a way to bend the law. I know who pulled. I want my boy. I'm like. Why is he so insistent on this?
I'm rich over here. I don't understand why you're having trouble explaining this to a court. Sylvester Stallone can't even support himself, much less a child you can barely tie his shoes.
He wears slip-ons. Have you noticed that?
now, if you can't convince a court of this, then I'll find a lawyer who can, and I will make sure you end up rotting inside a block of cement. Pardon, my French.
Messy boo boo.
Sylvester Stallone, meanwhile, is arm wrestling Mike in the truck and Stallone is telling him all his hopes and dreams, like they're just having a slumber party. Now he's like, hey, I'm gonna go to Las Vegas and I'm gonna win this big arm wrestling tournament. I'm gonna start my own company. Mike then asked him the question that we all want to know, which is father? Why did you leave me and mother when I was a child?
It's a pretty good question. Let me answer that for you. I had my reasons and I made a mistake, and that kind of stuff happens. We all make mistakes. You make mistakes, I make mistakes, and that's it. This is why I left right, that's it.
Yeah, I promise it won't happen again. The old look. Here we are at the hospital, so we can advance the plot of this movie a little more in my earlier breakdown of how to make this movie less worse.
If in this scene he looked at Mike and he said your mom and I were dating for two years and your grandpa never liked me. She had money, I did, but we were in love and then one day we had a really big fight. It was really bad and we broke up and your grandpa came to me and said I want you to not see my daughter anymore. Here is a truck, go away. Your mom and I were angry at each other and I took the truck and I've been driving ever since then.
And then it wasn't until your mom reached out to me that I even Knew that I had a son. If you did that like, oh well, then that makes sense. He didn't leave you, he just he was bought off and he feels bad about it. It's the Patricia grain of more syndrome. He knew he had a price. Robert lozha named it, and now he knows that about himself right.
I like that makes the movie so much better. Just give any reason other than I have my reasons. That's the whole explanation. That could be everything for him. I had this shit, and when your mom was telling me that there was a kid all the way, I was more concerned about my stomach and I was fleeing to the bathroom rather than listen to her and I didn't know there was a kid involved for a while. But they go to the hospital. This is where we first learned that she has had heart surgery.
Is that what it was? Yeah, I don't hear that the nurse goes to get a doctor when Sloan's like, yeah, I'm here to talk to you know, his mom over here. And she's like, oh, my goodness, I have a way to right here, let me get you a doctor. And the doctor comes over and she's like, oh, yeah, her, yet she died.
I did everything I could to save her life.
But I never got a chance to see her. Yeah.
Oh she's dead. Wow, everybody saw that coming.
And then Mike's there he hears it, he boo-hoo's and immediately defaults to his blaming Sloan for everything which he does repeatedly in this film.
I should have flown home instead of running around in a stinky, stupid boy picture filled truck. You've never been around when I was needed, father, and you weren't around now, yeah, and then he just runs to the front of the hospital gets in a taxi and drives off.
Can kids do that? Can kids just hop in a taxi and off they go?
I don't think so, although he does say, cabbie, take me to the Cutler estate.
And maybe that's what gets him the ride is he does go to an airport and just buy a ticket on his own. I don't know if kids can do that. No, almost certainly not. Well, this was the 80s, this is pre 9-11, so different rules. You got the cash, man. Well, we got a seat after she's dead and he's driven off. We cut to the funeral at a graveyard and everyone's there dressed in black. And then Stallone shows up late. He's late to everything, man.
He's wearing jeans and a black denim shirt and a tie clip on. One assumes he just walks up while this minister is holding the service, walks over, drops some flowers on the casket and then just leaves like he's got somewhere to be yeah, losia just glares at him like you couldn't afford a pair of black pants, your poor son of a bitch Pardon my French missy boo boo.
And Mike is crying and Stallone just takes off, he just leaves. It's just crazy that we're supposed to believe this is the hero of our movie, who wants to be with this boy, when all he does is like, hey, here's some flowers, you're later and you know we picked him up at like 7-11.
Oh yeah, these are some grocery store bouquets at best, as he probably got him off the side of the road. They're wrapped in plastic. Most of them are dead. There's some sort of bug flying around them. It's not easily recognizable.
Something that is not native to this country. It's a real invasive species going on here cut to Stallone.
He's just sitting on his Semi-truck looking out at the ocean as the Sun is rising or setting and he's reflecting on the day, and then he's like.
You maybe mentioned, see what's going on there.
So he shows up and the security guy says go away. So, naturally, stallone crashes his truck through the front gates and then smashes his truck into the house and inside. Robert lozha, rightfully so, comes, I think. What the hell, what? Are you doing here?
You can crash your truck into my house While he's like hey, I came here for boy. Lozha is like alright, when are my goons?
call the cops, tell them it's Robert lozha. They'll send some of the good cops over to help me out wink, wink.
Did you notice me wink in there? Yeah, boss we saw you winking that doesn't mean I want him killed.
Immediately the cops show up, throw the cuffs on him because Stallone has now committed multiple crimes.
Fandalism breaking and entering destruction of private property's gotta be in there.
Attempted kidnapping, that's a good one. He goes to jail One of the guards or whatever comes over and he's like. So that's Stallone. There's somebody here to see you and in the background on the wall someone is taking a ballpoint pen and drawing a naked lady With huge boobs and a giant bush.
And so the attorney sits down with Sly in jail locus attorney and says so, mr Stallone, how do I put this? You are poor, you're very, very poor. So what we would like you to do leave the state, give up any attempts to try to get custody of this shitty, shitty kid. You talking about Mike Ray? Yeah, look, it's the shitty kid. I think we can all agree that he's just awful. Just making sure You're not going to contest custody ever, if you say so, and we will drop all charges. That sounds good.
You know, no harm, no foul. You just get the fuck out of here. Pardon Robert Lozzi's French. He told me to say that. Get the fuck out of here. Pardon my French.
Yeah, so basically my life goes back to being like it was 40 hours ago. That's right, dumb deal. Where do I sign? All right, wait, hold on a second, there might come up with this plan.
This is Mike's plan right, why don't you ask him yourself?
Oh hey hey, mikey, come over here and talk to your old man in jail, all right.
Hello, father, this is always how I imagine meeting you.
That lawyer guy there said, uh, they're not going to send me jail long time. I'll obviously get how you feel about that, Mike.
I just don't know what we would do if I went with you, to be honest, because all you have is that stinky, stinky, borderline felonious truck.
Yeah Well, you know, if you stay with me we drive around that truck. You know, forever maybe go Las Vegas or something. That's about as far as I got. Next, you know 24 hours.
That's kind of a problem, because I do want to be educated and I want a bed to sleep in and friends and food that isn't served with cutlery that is bought in bulk, and not to live inside a home. That is also a form of conveyance.
Yeah, I didn't understand more than that. I mean, you live with me. We're going to be in the truck. There's going to be mystery bottles rolling around with things that you can take. We're probably going to arm wrestle and eat mashed potatoes. That's what I got to offer you, mike.
This is something that I give Stallone. Stallone is good at the emotional speech.
Stallone is not terrible in this.
No, no, no.
I am a Stallone apologist. I think when he plays subdued characters he's fires on all cylinders and in this, as I noted in the intro, he's more this side of enthusiastic. His character is really toned down, except when he's arm wrestling and then he's like screaming, like he's blowing out multiple hemorrhoids.
And he gives a pretty good speech here about it. Look, the only thing I can guarantee is that wherever we go, we'll be together. And I got this thing inside me and it's not my peepee. I got this other thing that I want to give to you. Mike just says I can't do this, father, not because of the peepee thing, I just can't do it in general. And he takes off and Sly says look, I just want you to remember one thing when you go forget what Kay Loggins said.
I know we've been saying a lot, but forget about it. No one is going to be you halfway. You gotta do what's best for you. Well, that's what I'm doing about this. So have a good life, bye, bye. And takes off and the attorney says so uh, you want me to drop these papers, or what? And so I was like, yeah, go ahead and draw them up. I think I'm done here.
We cut to Stallone driving his truck and he's on his way to Las Vegas as a sad piano version of meet me halfway place. And we come back to Robert Loge's mansion and Mike is just pilfering through all the drawers and cabinets of his dead mom stuff and then eventually he stumbles upon a stack of letters from Sylvester Stallone to Mike over the years, and these letters are all hidden in a purse, which my first question is why didn't the mom share them with Mike over this last decade?
My theory was always well, Robin Loge was the one who hid all these letters from him, but there's no indication of that, other than I kind of wish that were the thing that were true.
Right If he'd found them in Robert Loge's office. That makes sense. They're not. They're in his mom's stuff and also none of them have a return address. That suspicious Mike opens a letter from Stallone that when you look at the handwriting it is clearly not written by Sylvester Stallone man like the real person. It's the penmanship that screams female production assistant, because it's like real big loops and like hearts over the eyes and stuff. And I paused it.
Or and I read the letter that Mike reads and it says dear Mike, I'm writing from Indonesia, a place that is different from anywhere I have ever been. I wish you could be here with me so we could see and do everything together. How is everything with you? I hope you're doing good in school. Take care, mike, I'll write again soon. Love dad, indonesia.
What Well you took the bridge.
It feels like a letter to Santa Claus. Dear Mr Claus, how are you? How is Mrs Claus? How are the reindeer? I hope the elves are doing well. I would like a Holly Hobbie doll this year. Thank you Sincerely.
Susan, dear Mike, I'm in Antarctica. It is a place that is very cold. As such, for Christmas this year, I would like a big jacket.
Love you, dad. Ps. I did not see any penguins here.
Back in the movie, however, stallone is selling off his truck to raise his stake money for this Las Vegas thing. He sells this whole truck for seven grand and basically says, hey, I appreciate that. Eight to seven thousand dollars. Hey, can I keep all the pictures inside?
and the hawk on the front, as is buddy, as is how about one or the other, you can take the hawk, but I want these pictures of these kids. Look at these guys.
You can have the pictures of my son and that kitty arm wrestled, but I want the hawk on the front All right. Because my name is Hawk Hawks, a Lincoln.
You want this Lincoln chain. It's hanging off the back and if you ever watch this movie at this point, I hate to tell you you still have 30 minutes left to go, but we're going to get through it pretty quick, because not much happens in Act 3, aside from montages and arm wrestling. Yeah, so Mike finds out his dad did write him letters and send him birthday cards.
This somehow negates his argument earlier that Stallone lives in a truck down by the river and has no money and his grandfather, the only family he's ever known, is loaded and didn't abandon him for no good reason.
And so he just busts out of this place from the roof, by the way, like he's locked inside a castle, like a Disney princess, yeah.
He's not the front door man Right. Why are you doing this? I don't know. Mike goes to the garage in the house and steals a pickup truck and drives off which Beau know he didn't. He wouldn't make it to the mailbox without crashing.
Just because he drove a semi that one time, right With his dad beside him the entire time, does not mean he is now a good driver, much less a good driver who can lose some followers. Yeah, he's being tailed, which also happened.
I just pointed out that if Stallone wins this arm wrestling tournament, he gets I think it's $100,000, and he wins a brand new semi truck, which I was like. Well, that's a pretty good prize if you're a trucker, which only one or two of the people in this competition are. Otherwise it's kind of a crappy prize. What are you going to go sell it?
Right, I mean, it's still worth a quarter of a million dollars and so you could. Yeah, you got to pay the taxes on it, but yeah, absolutely you sell it If he wins.
he wins a truck that's worth $250,000 and he gets $100,000. We'll come back to that in a moment.
Yes, so Sly has placed the bet on himself. Yeah.
What are the odds on Sly Stallone? Maybe it's on the Lincoln Hawk, maybe on the Hockasaurus Link, hawk, hawk, link. Just keep looking. Look under all the H's, look under the L's, look under S.
He's 20 to one odds, that's going to net him another what? 140 grand, plus the $100,000 if he wins, plus this quarter of a million dollar truck. So he weighs in and he's, as we pointed out, kind of on the small side in this movie.
Here we get the announcer for the first time, but not the last time telling us the audience and the people watching this arm wrestling competition. The announcer says these are the greatest arm wrestlers in the world, traveling from Asia, europe and around the globe. Remember, this is a double elimination tournament, meaning that when Sylvester Stallone loses in a few minutes he's not out of the competition. He will have a second chance to still be awarded Grand Champion.
Arm Wrestler of the Universe.
They actually say this in like an actual line from the movie. In other words, if you lose once, you still have a chance.
It's like got it movie and they do it three times. It would be like if you watched an episode of Wheel of Fortune and between every single round, pat Sajak explained the rules of the game. I get it at the beginning. I'm noxious.
You know what I mean.
Like I don't have a problem with that, but they do it over and over. And during this sequence we get another montage hearing Sammy Hagar sing. Winter takes it all and we get to see a bunch of people arm wrestling, including Stallone. Bull Hurley shows up he's the guy from earlier in the movie the big walking thumb guy. There's a guy named Grizzly who wrestles. He looks like Hacksaw, jim Duggan's first cousin.
It's all very boring, but we do see Mike driving his grandpa's pickup truck on the interstate to the airport bow. This is completely unbelievable because if you look closely, there's no keys in the ignition of the truck because it's shot with rear projection. Mike arrives at the airport and he just leaves the truck in the unloading zone and the sky cap yells hey, you can't leave your truck here. And this asshole kid.
Mike just tosses the guy the keys and he's like fine, you keep it and he runs off, yeah.
And a little bit later Robert Lucia's men show up and remind us that Robert Lucia is actually a thing in this movie. Lucia is traveling in his own private jet while we get some cut ins from the competition, where one guy like gets his arm blown out or something and just like that, Chad, we're at the semifinals.
I guess Robert Lucia and his goons assume that Mike is going to Las Vegas. It'd be nice if they connected those dots. But why start now? And then we're moving through the competition pretty quick. The announcer does come out here again and he says we're approaching the main event, the semifinals. The eight best arm wrestlers are competing. Remember, it's a double elimination tournament.
This again means when Stallone loses the first time, he's still going to have a chance to come back to be the grand champion. We get it. And then Mike in Vegas, he gets eyed by some goons and he runs off and hides on some luggage. All of it's very unthrilling. They announced the final eight arm wrestlers who will be in this competition, including Grizzly, the guy I mentioned earlier.
With the Fubar shirt. My favorite detail of this is his Fubar tank top.
And he eats a lit cigar before one match and then he drinks motor oil before one match. That's right. Like all of these characters feel like off brand professional wrestlers. The second person they introduce is Mad Dog. He's a real deep thinker because they do these cutaways where you see the arm wrestlers being interviewed in front of the prize truck and during this cutaway.
Mad Dog says I don't want people to pat me on the back. If I'm the best is because I win, and then I'm the best at arm wrestle.
Then they introduce Bosco, a guy who's wearing a t-shirt with the Alka Seltzer logo on it and his sleeves are cut out, because of course they are. Then Canadian champ, carl Adams and Canadians. They're known for their humility, so there's no need to grandstand this guy with a catchy stage name.
When they interview him, he's just like, yeah, I'm just happy to be here and I hope that this is about sportsmanship. You guys want a double, double or something? Okay.
Next they introduce Sylvester Stallone. He weighs like 200 pounds less than everyone else in this movie. And then, lastly, they introduce Bull Hurley, who proudly says that he drives trucks, breaks arms and arm wrestles and that second place sucks. But they've only introduced six people, when they said there would be eight. That's right. That's one of lack of attention to detail that I expect from a Canon film.
Well, if it can't get the name of the main character right, how are they going to count? Count to eight. Like you're lucky, you got six. At least it was an even number.
Mike's in the airport and he looks up on some television monitors and luckily this arm wrestling competition is being broadcast live on TV and it also announces what hotel it's taking place at. So Mike runs off to that hotel. Back at the competition. This is where we see Grizzly beat Sylvester Stallone for that first match that we heard all about.
Don't worry, chad, though, because you have to get beat twice. He still has a chance, according to the announcers.
It is a double elimination, double meaning two, pardon my French.
We never see Bull or any of these guys lose, but one presumes that they have lost previously.
Once Stallone loses, the announcer does come back and says each semi finalist has another chance. You must lose twice to be eliminated. We get it. I mean he says this three times. It's crazy. This movie needs a Pauly from Rocky or a Jerry Reed from Smokey and the Bandit. If he had had a friend on the road with him as comedic relief to show up to kind of be his corner man in this, that would have been much better.
It would have added 10 more minutes to the movie, but it would have made the film way more enjoyable.
Well, anything that you could have used to allow Stallone to explain more of the plot, like, I know that you're supposed to show a nuttell, but if you're, you got to do one or the other. You got to show or tell, you can't do neither.
Just imagine the snowman alongside to Vestor Stallone in this, cracking jokes and throwing out trucker lingo, of which there is none in this movie.
Right. Or like telling this guy hey, here's why I really left, but I can't tell my kid that because he might take responsibility for it or something. I don't want that. I want him to feel like he never had nothing to do with why I left or have the friend be the one who tells the kid. Right, and that's because you know your grandfather said this, and rather than break up your family, he left Right.
Like any of those things would have been a great addition to this movie, because it would have been something rather than nothing.
So Stallone loses Terry Funk, who is Robert Loja's muscle.
He shows up and he says Robert Loja wants to see you up in his Las Vegas suite.
So Stallone goes up to the suite to see Robert Loja. Loja says I had to send. You lost your first match. You were a real loser, you know, with Christina being dead and all, by the way, did you hear she's?
dead, okay, just making sure, wait I didn't kill her did I.
Okay, good Boys check our death certificate. Doesn't say Cement shoes, does it?
Death by lozha. It's just a box you check.
He looks at the lozha and says I don't have any family left except for Mike. You got nothing to lose, cause you're a loser. You deserted Christina and Mike and you're a liar. You deserted him, sylvester Sloan. But wait, I wanna show you something. They walk over to this balcony and lozha says Look down there See that that's the finest rig money can buy. You wanted it yours. And also here's a check for $500,000. Take the truck, take the money. You already signed over custody to Mike.
You're a loser. Wait, he's already signed over custody. Now you're giving him a truck and a half a million dollars, which is more than he's gonna make if he goes over the top and wins the competition. Leave right now.
Right, you don't want this kid in the first place. He took off twice.
He doesn't know the kids coming back. All he knows right now, legally this is done and done. This is all icing on the cake and they're not gonna press charges.
Walk out, take your money, but instead he goes to leave and Robert lozha is like hey, you meathead Lozha.
I see he turned around when I said that.
And Terry Funk is that who stands in his way. Yeah, sly just looks at this guy and is like, hey, I got to get out of here, and so he just sends him through these glass doors into the hotel room. Back at the competition, stallone is facing Grizzly again. This is the point where he drinks the valvoline from the can. This is where we get maybe the best Stallone just yell of the movie where he does a yeah, droopy lip, sweaty bulging veins. It's pretty good.
He's wrestling a man who just drank motor oil. I mean, you know, this guy's about to have explosive diarrhea, right.
Or just drop dead Chad, Like that is not something the human body can digest.
You think it was all showmanship like. It was really just like apple juice with a little cornstarch in it.
Probably Stallone ends up winning what Mike is now in a taxi, but also, by the way, chad, where does he have money for?
all of this. He probably found it in his mom's underwear drawer.
He went through all those letters and got all the fives and tens that Stallone had sent him over the years. Oh my goodness. Father gave me almost $3,000 worth of back birthday.
I thought he was poor. He's not poor, he's just mostly poor.
He's not pitiless. Well, that changes everything. Why, if he's got enough money to send me $10 every six months? So we see that Bull has won. Canadian Carl has won. Well, thank you for allowing me to arm wrestle you.
This was a great match.
Best to you and the misses. I assume there is a misses, because you were just too big a catch to be single. And so Mike is in sight of the Hilton where the competition is being held. We see that Stallone beats this mad dog guy, and now we're on to the finals.
Yes, there's four people left in the finals.
So the announcer tells us that the name of the movie comes from this, so this is called over the top. That's what we like to call it. This is the finals of this competition, because that's the name of the movie, so that's what it's called over the top. So we have Bull Stallone, carl the Canadian and then Bosco yeah, harry Bosco. When they call his name, stallone is just straight up like striking a pose by this fancy semi truck that they're all going to win. Yeah, it's quite good.
Mike shows up and he's just screaming from the crowd Father, father, it's me, your son, mike. I'm here to inspire you to victory, like Adrian and Rocky or Glenn Close at the end of the natural.
Stallone then beats this Harry Bosco guy.
He's the dude earlier we saw in the Alka-Seltzer shirt, but he's changed it out for a Budweiser shirt. And when this match starts, though, they kind of put their hands up together. And then Stallone gets this like quick, jump on Bosco and just slams his arm down real fast, and it's like Bosco wasn't paying attention or maybe Stallone cheated. It didn't seem like a really fair competition.
Bosco likes to complain about this. It's like, oh, I wasn't ready yet. It's like, dude, they called time and it was like the fact that you weren't ready is not Stallone's fault.
It seemed like a schoolyard cheat, like I remember kids arm wrestling like this, that there was like the one, two, three go. It was like one, two, three. And then, I can just slam it down real hard and the guy's like, oh, this is bullshit.
But Stallone's like hey, nobody meets you halfway. That's what I thought was right.
You've been listening to too much Kenny Loggins, take it out. I'm going to meet you halfway. I'm not going to be you halfway at all.
You just entered the danger zone. Is that ring a bell to you, right?
There was a highway too. I was driving on it a highway to danger zone and then you were in the danger zone, but you thought you were being met halfway across the sky, and that's the problem. That's why you're getting some mixed signals from Kenny Loggins. You got no wish song to listen to for which part of the movie.
Right, you look like you was a little bit footloose. Whoa footloose. You should have kicked off them. Sunday shoes.
Ironically, I'm the one who's all right. You are not all right.
I'm all right, don't nobody need to worry about me though, All right.
Mike shows up and is like Father, Father, I want to stay with you now.
I want to be with you, yeah he meets him behind the bleachers, Like whenever Stallone isn't wrestling. He's like hanging out now with a bunch of empty popcorn boxes and discarded beer cups. Mike comes around, he's like Father, we should be together forever.
And Stallone looks at me like, hey, mike, what are you doing here? I thought you was in California legally living with your grandfather. So I'm like, yeah, also I don't know if I can beat this guy, that guy's big guy, bull. He was that guy who came up and kind of propositioned you earlier when he was not eating steaks at that place. Big hands putting my time. He, I got to wrestle him.
But that last match when I kind of cheated, I mean when I won real fast, I kind of messed up my arm a little bit, then my guy, I don't think I'm going to be able to beat this guy. Yeah, this guy seemed pretty tough. I got to be honest with you, yeah, and then Mike gives him a little pep talk.
Father, you were the one who told me that life doesn't meet you halfway across the sky.
Yeah, that's what I say. I say that, I say it to everybody.
All I care about is being with you, Father. No matter what happens, I love you. And then they hug and he's like, hey, maybe I can't beat this guy after all, if you believe in me, then I believe in me.
Then maybe the crowd believes in me. Maybe I could win this. Let's go see how this movie ends. All right, don't spoil it for me, all right.
I've read the whole script. I've been waiting. I got to the part where they start calling me by a different name and I didn't know that I was supposed to keep reading.
I got confused. I thought maybe it was like you know multiplicity or something like that, like it's me, but like eight different versions of me. I was like I don't know if I got a acting range.
I got to be honest with you, mike, I've never read a script past the part I was in.
We get to the final match and first they introduced Bull Hurley, the undefeated champ. He comes in the ring first, because that's not how these are done in the real world, and then they bring in the challenger, which is the movie star, which is why it's happening in reverse order and the announcer slash narrator of the competition. He comes out and he says we have the champion and the challenger.
One huge one, a tiny, small man, it's a David and Goliath story and we all know how that story ended. But in case, you didn't go to Sunday school as a child. The smaller David defeats a mighty Goliath.
They kind of stalk around their tables. It's like, well, we can see that the challenger on the champion are trying to psych each other out and you're like, I guess this guy Bull Hurley.
he doesn't shut up Like he's constantly screaming smack before, during and after the match.
Yeah, and it's constantly stuff like you don't belong here. I'm going to eat you. I'm going to chew you up and spit you out.
Yeah you're no good. You're terrible. People talk about you behind your back.
I found out that you lied about your college transcript. You just have an associate, it's not a bachelor's.
The main match starts and Stallone flips his hat on backwards because that's what he does so that he feels like a machine, you like a truck and the arm wrestling starts and there's a lot of grunting and bull at first, but it looks like he's going to win. But then their hands slip apart and bull screams out you let go.
You asshole.
And then the refs bring out the strap. Now what you think? It's a little like two person glove, where they force their hands to stay together so that people can't pull away if they're going to lose, which is what Stallone did.
And then Lucia shows up. Look, I'm here to watch the mom wrestling. If I run into a little boy and a loser that used to be my son-in-law so be it.
Hey, there's Mike right there. Mike, come here. When all this nonsense is over. You're coming back to the giant mansion that we live in, with the multiple pools and the jet skis and the hot models walking around and the masseuse and the three private chefs and the multiple cars, one of which you left at the airport will buy you two to replace it.
Stallone clocks Lucia coming in as well.
Hey I know that guy. I've seen him before on TV. He looks real familiar.
While they're strapped together like their hands are strapped together not the sexy kind bull just pops Stallone in the nose yeah, he headbutts him.
I think this movie needed a little blood. It is a canon film.
At this point Chuck Norris should have busted him. We're all in incredible danger. There are terrorists losing the Hilton oh hey, how about I join forces with you, chuck Norris? And we thought to shoot the place up and kill some terrorists. And then at the end of the movie, I'll get run off with my boy and Roblozio get killed by getting kicked out a window or something.
That would be a better movie than what happens next.
Which is they just grunt and strain at each other for a while, mother arm wrestling.
And then Stallone does his little secret finger wrap move, and then he wins.
Yeah, because arm wrestling is boring, because there is no way you can make this exciting. It's bad enough that you already know that by the nature of this kind of movie, that Stallone is going to win. There's just no getting around that, right, the fact that you are now taking the mystery out of an already boring act. The only way it's exciting is, like you mentioned in the introduction, with the fly, where you just crank somebody's arms so hard that their bone comes out.
I was surprised that it didn't happen in this movie that someone didn't break a wrist. Well, did somebody get a wrist broken or did they just pull a muscle during the and?
they just strained a muscle or pulled a tendon or something boring like that. Like you needed the tibula broken. Like the whole hand removed. It's just anything like if you're going to go over the top, go over the top like really embrace the spirit of this and have people's like four arms being ripped in half and arms coming off like Phil Hartman and the old drug Olympic sketch, Like something like that is what you need for this movie.
It also shouldn't take place in Vegas. This should be some underground nonsense.
Yes, 100%. It's like this should be real fight clubby. Yeah, At the end of the movie, like the Stallone has one, he picks Mike up, puts him on a shoulder as you do gives him his sweaty, stinky hat to wear, uh-huh Gross. And then Robert Lozier is just like, well, I guess he showed me.
Yeah, all right, boys out of this movie, I'm going to go back to my mansion and die alone, with no family. A lonely old man.
Wait a second. I'm rich, I can have a trophy. What boys put out the word? Lozi is in town and he's looking for a trophy wife. I'm going to get laid six ways from Sunday pardon my French. I'm going to be fucking so many young hot girls who are just looking for a sugar daddy. It's going to make you sick. I'm going to take pictures of it and show them to you and you're going to vomit in your shorts. Pardon my French. I'm going to get my dick so wet you're going to need a sponge to clean it.
Pardon my French.
That's the end of our movie. Well, stallone and Mike do leave the casino and they get in the truck. That's Stallone, one from the competition, and as they're walking they're discussing starting their own business called Hawkinson or Son and Hawk or Mike and Hawk or Mike and Link, or Lincoln, mike or Mike and Lincoln, lincoln, hawkinson and Mike and.
Link.
Whatever combination rolls off the tongue best. And then they drive off. And we get to hear another song called Take it Higher by Larry Green and we get shots of the truck driving off in the West.
End of movie. What a terrible, terrible film. It's all right. So among the many sins of this film is it doesn't get its main character's name right all the time. One, yes, it doesn't explain what anyone's relationship is to one another.
There's no motivation for any of the characters doing anything that they do.
It doesn't explain the basic motivation for the characters, ie why Stallone left in the first place. Correct, that's still a question mark at the end of the movie. It doesn't explain why the son ever really comes around to this deadbeat father of his.
No.
And yet I still find it to be a very watchable movie, even though it doesn't succeed in the basic functions of a movie.
You know what you like. What you like, I mean, I don't fault that. I can see the nostalgic 80s appeal and, as I've said before, I like Sly Stallone in roles like this. Yeah, there are a couple of moments that he delivers lines or the way that he's looking at this shitty kid. He's doing a pretty good job, but what do we have coming up on the next episode of Pick Six Movies?
Oh, Chad, you know how we did a good movie earlier this season and yeah, we accidentally did that yeah. And and we actually got some good feedback. People were like hey, you should do good movies more often.
We did get a surprising amount of feedback saying that they enjoyed hearing us talk about a good movie.
So we're going to do that again, but we're going to do a movie that is both good and super weird. All right, this is our first foray into the world of David Lynch, so we are going to do the road movie in my opinion, to end all world movies, which is the Lynchian nightmare. That is wild at heart. I love it. It's got Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Cage.
Laura Dern not chasing dinosaurs.
It's got maybe the best Crispin Glover moment in cinema history.
It's better than did you hit your head? Yes, is it better than feck? Yes, it is Damn.
It's a brief moment in the in the movie where Laura Dern is telling a story about her cousin, and he is that cousin that we get a flashback to, and it's incredible.
At the onset of this podcast, when we were hired to do it, I never envisioned that we would do a movie like this by a director like this.
We'll get into it, like we're going to talk about Lynch and his uvra a bit and what makes him such an interesting filmmaker. I'm excited to do this because I love David Lynch. I love I think I've seen everything he's ever done aside from the short films, and you know I'm sure I haven't seen every Twitter post he has done about temperatures and the weather where he lives.
Do you see all the episodes of the Cleveland show? I have not. Hmm, see, you're not a purist, you got to watch all those.
I've watched all the films that he has written and directed. Again aside from some of the short films where it's him interviewing a monkey and stuff like that. But that is the stuff I love. Yeah, like that's why I love David Lynch. David Lynch is a pure artist. His movies don't always make sense, but they are always filled with ideas and visuals, and Wild at Heart is among my favorite Lynch. It is probably not my favorite David Lynch movie, but it's certainly in the top five.
I'm looking forward to going back and revisiting this. I remember seeing this in the theater, quite possibly with you. I think we saw this together, man we were weird.
Far to unfeat.
So, as always, like rate review, all that kind of good stuff, you can email us at picksixmovies.com Thank you for everyone who set us recommendations for this season. Please continue to send us recommendations. Will we consider them Absolutely? Will we do them? Probably not. That's just because we have a lot of stuff already lined up and in the can and introductions that are being written by a very talented staff that we have. That help us to get our job done in the most efficient way possible.
But any final thoughts that you have on over the top?
You know we've got a whole new truck here. Let me get the camera. We've got to start taking some pictures. Fill this thing up, oh father, click.
We'll see you in two weeks. Bye, everybody.