Top Line

By the late 80s, Italian movie production companies realized they couldn't afford to make even low budget movies without help. The help came from countries willing to offer financial breaks other countries couldnt or wouldnt make. So here is a movie made in Columbia much like the genuine sequel to the original 1966 film Django.

I enjoy this movie more than most late 80s action movies. Franco Nero plays a little unbelievably high functioning alcoholic writer. I suppose he wasn't as much of an alcoholic because he would've dropped dead as early as the cactus chase.

The story is about an unemployed writer who inadvertently stumbles on an alien spacecraft that crashed into a mountain and had been hidden for thousands of years. His discovery leads to his being pursued but it's not clear until the end by who. Russians?, Americans?, aliens? All of the above?

Movie has an alternate title, Alien Terminator and there is a humanoid robot that tries to kill him toward the end but its not enough for a title. I have no clue why this is called Top Line.

Italian action movies do borrow A LOT from other better known movies. The better of these Italian movies blend what they borrow and layer the movie with the influences. This move has a little Alien, Terminator, Indiana Jones, and They Live all mixed in.

George Kennedy drops in for a couple scenes. I imagine he worked for an all expense paid vacation in Central America(why not?). Unlike Franco Nero and William Berger, someone else dubs his lines which further leads me to believe this was a vacation movie. Dubbing is done later in a studio, not convenient.

Anyway, it's not cinematic gold but better than alot of the Italian productions before their studios began going under. They did fall apart not long after the direct to video market exploded and North American movies as cheaply made as this were produced and flooded the market.

This one´s quite original. Italians did not have enough money to make those big movies we all tend to like or at least watch. So they put cheap funny flics like this one together. There are Nazis, Extraterrestrials, Cyborgs, a Spanish gold treasure and of course there´s Franco Nero as the always drunk Soldier of Fortune, who has to pull it all off. As you can see, they didn´t let anything out. And, I think, it works. The FX are cheap but enjoyable, the pacing is fast (it has to be regarding the really dumb plot) and the acting is quite reliable (of course Franco Nero is great as ever and there´s also Hollywood veteran George Kennedy as a Nazi Villain). Director Nello Rossati did the also very enjoyable sequel Django Strikes Again before. A Movie you might check out, too.

This film's American title, ALIEN TERMINATOR, suggests that it would be set in outer space - but it's actually a jungle adventure for the best part of the duration! It's silly, cheesy and cheap (particularly the robot effects and the repellent make-up of the alien creature at the end) but oddly watchable.

The cast, however, looks fairly uncomfortable: Franco Nero is amusing as a writer on the skids; William Berger's role is limited to the beginning and is quite brief; George Kennedy is hilariously out-of-place as an antiquarian with a silly German accent and an even sillier laugh - his death is therefore appropriately reminiscent of Dreyer's VAMPYR (1932)!; the three women with whom Nero is involved - among them Deborah Barrymore, not a member of the celebrated American family of that name but actually British, and the daughter of Roger Moore!! - are attractive but add very little to the proceedings (except for the twist ending involving Mary Stavin).

A hilarious scene involves an unstoppable cyborg (in the vein of Arnold Schwarzenegger), belatedly introduced into the story, which gets into a scrape with a bull and is torn in half into the bargain! Also, the worldwide conspiracy theory brought up in the script - that aliens are already living among us and occupy important civil positions - is not only far-fetched but ludicrous! The film does have an eclectic electronic score (a feature of many a low-budget title from the 80s) which alternates between lounge music and disco-oriented vibes, not that this helps matters much...

Everybody with even the slightest interest in cult/exploitation cinema knows that the Italians were true masters of imitation. During the 70s, and especially during the 80s, they joyfully copied premises and ideas of popular Hollywood blockbusters and released them as blatant and shameless rip-offs, although usually with more action, more absurd plot twists, more extravagant characters and much more sleaze. Literally every Hollywood classic that scored big at the box office received several Italian imitations. This "Top Line" presumably holds the world record of stealing ideas from the largest number of US-blockbusters in one and the same script, as it contains story elements of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Cocoon", "Romancing the Stone", "The Terminator", "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", "E. T.", and probably even a few others I'm overlooking. I just wished it was as much fun as it sounds, though...

Franco Nero is one of the biggest and most talented actors to root from Italy, for sure, but the late 80s definitely weren't the best years of his career. Here, he stars as a lowlife author residing in Columbia; - supposedly hunting for ancient treasures but mainly settling for spare chance and free booze leftovers. He, Angelo, does eventually stumble upon a massive discovery, namely a UFO hidden inside an old Spanish galleon (yes, really!). From then onwards, Angelo finds himself pursued by CIA agents, Russian KGB spies, Nazi antique dealers, a cyborg mercenary, and slimy green aliens disguised in the sexy skin of his ex-wife. I honestly don't know how all this ended up in one plot, but I reckon director Nello Rosati and whoever wrote the scripts were experimenting with a lot of drugs at the time.

The problem with "Top Line" is that it looks and sounds like a fun flick, but in reality, it's a downright boring and irritating mess. Like a few other reviewers already righteously stated, the uninteresting parts of the film are incredibly stretched out. The first 15-20 minutes, for instance, contain absolutely nothing of interest, and only feature images of Nero passed out with his head on bar tables and a lot of inaudible dialogs. If you manage to struggle through the first act, what follows next is a thoroughly confusing and incoherent middle-section with some utterly senseless action footage. Suddenly, for example, Nero's character is in the back of pickup truck - amidst boxes full of chickens - and behind the wheel is a drunken Colombian couple that races down a cliff whilst hysterically laughing. They even continue laughing and drinking whilst their truck is being rammed and shot at by one of Angelo's pursuers. What the...? The final act of "Top Line" is amusing, what with the cyborg assassin and the transforming alien, but it's simultaneously the most illogical bunch of nonsense I ever witnessed.

Let's see, is there something else worth mentioning? Oh yeah, the almighty George Kennedy has a small supportive role as a sadist Nazi who enjoys chasing Nero with his car - at a snail's pace - through a field of cactuses. His distinct voice is dubbed, however, which is truly a cinematic crime.

It's difficult to sit here and praise a fair pace, suitable plot development, and timely insertion of action scenes when the movie is so dubious otherwise. I'm not sure if it's just the poor fidelity in the specific treatment of 'Top line' I watched, or if every element was truly just so uncarefully considered, but by one means or another so much of the feature feels very inauthentic, and plainly staged. Even scenes of the greatest excitement seem like they're painted over with a muted tone that means nothing is depicted with any impact.

Direction is questionable. Editing and sequencing is dubious. Delivery of dialogue is forced, and some lines as written are suspect. Even the most outlandish plot can be rendered into a compelling story, but the narrative writing in 'Top line' is direly specious - weak, and unconvincing - and the scene writing isn't much better. The score feels incomplete - like the compositions as we hear them were demos that were left unfinished. Dampened as the performances are by the film's construction, only Deborah Moore manages to stand out with a display of acting that's at all noteworthy - though she doesn't escape unscathed from this mess, either.

The special effects are alright, I suppose, for 1988. But if that's the greatest praise to offer for a film, something is very wrong.

I'll be honest, I want to like this more than I do. Far-fetched as the screenplay is, there are some good ideas here. I especially like the climax, and the concept of the ending - I think these tie together the rest of the narrative pretty well, though of course they don't ameliorate the utmost difficulties we've endured to reach that finale. If even just the writing were approached with greater care, the movie would have been elevated considerably. But as it is, the picture at large reflects a glaring lack of attentiveness, diligence, or thoughtfulness, and the result is the near total negation of any positive attributes. It's all too easy for one's focus to wander away from a feature this dull, and I can't imagine recommending it to anyone. I suppose there are still many worse titles one could subject themselves to, and it's entertaining in the way that any visual media is a diversion - but by no means should you seek this out. 'Top line' is a movie for a very rare, rainy day, and that's about it.