Top Line

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.

Oh man, oh man, oh man. I love it when I stumble across a beautiful gem buried amidst a pile of garbage, and the latest gem is a little Italian science fiction adventure from 1988 called TOP LINE. TOP LINE promises one thing then delivers another, in the best possible way. Take a gander at its poster and it seems to promise a riveting adventure in the vein of an Indiana Jones film, with stars Franco Nero and Deborah Barrymore swinging from a rope (in improbable stances) across a chasm in a deep cave with the busted wreckage of what appears to be a steamship in the background. This imagery is slightly misleading in that a) it's not a steamship they find in the cavern but a 15th century wooden galleon of some sort (if I'm remembering correctly), b) Barrymore's character isn't present when it's discovered, and c) this movie is way, way more than the average adventure film that this poster promises. For starters, the film's alternate title was ALIEN TERMINATOR and, oh my yes, it delivers on this promise. Let's start with some context. Nero plays Ted Angelo, an alcoholic writer who's been living in Colombia on his publisher's dime while trying to put together his next piece of work. Tired of waiting for Angelo to sober up and do his job, his editor/ex-wife Maureen (Mary Stavin) fires him, offering to buy him a plane ticket back home to Italy. By a stroke of luck, Angelo stumbles across an old Aztec dagger in the possession of his…Colombian sexy-time friend? Anyway, he makes plans to sell the dagger and make a nice profit but problems arise when those he contacts about selling it are murdered. Fearing for his life, he traces the dagger back to where it was found and discovers something that puts him at the top of everyone's hit list.

You should be warned: the first twenty minutes or so of this movie are pretty dull. At this point, it's just getting all the exposition out of the way. Angelo is an alcoholic. He's a writer, lives in Colombia. Spends most of his time passed out amid a swarm of empty bottles or cans instead of working. He's divorced and still works for his ex-wife (that takes some guts) and he seems like a bit of a running joke amongst his peers. Then, one day, his…I really don't know…hotel masseuse (?) busts out with an ornate Aztec dagger she borrowed off her boyfriend and Angelo has dollar signs in his eyes. At this point, the movie still has a very low-budget Indiana Jones vibe. Angelo is trying to find a fence for this hot product (it's mentioned that it's a crime to sell artifacts) but people are dropping dead around him. Worried it might've been stolen from the private collection of a powerful antique dealer (George Kennedy), Angelo traces it the dagger back to where it was discovered, an enormous cavern containing the wreckage of an old wooden sailing ship…and more. Now TOP LINE ditches any Indiana Jones adventure pretense and goes full science fiction and Angelo discovers an alien spacecraft hidden within. Now Angelo, the writer, has the story of the century as long as he can find someone that will believe him. This was one of the movie's funniest elements, in my opinion: Angelo desperately pleading like a mad man for someone to believe his tale of an ancient buried alien ship. I'm sure the filmmakers wanted us to feel the tension but it instantly melts away the moment I hear Nero raving about "flying saucers". Now, for the remaining hour or so of the movie's runtime, TOP LINE becomes one long awesome chase and this is where it gets interesting.

The last hour of this 90 minute movie makes it all worthwhile. Angelo is chased by increasingly dangerous opponents. One of my favorite parts of the film has Angelo evading capture by ditching his shoes (to confuse the men tracing his footsteps in the sand) and running barefoot into the desert. This turns out to be the worst possible thing he could've done because the deranged antique dealer then begins a low-speed car chase wherein he trails poor Angelo, forcing him to run barefoot through a long stretch of cacti. He just idles along behind Angelo, laughing insanely and nudging him along with his bumper when he stumbles to his knees in exhaustion. When Angelo tries to bring this UFO to the world's attention through a major New York news outlet, it sends a team immediately to South America to accompany Angelo back to the alien craft. But, surprise! Even the news crew is a secret team of assassins out to silence him. The only person he can trust is a woman named June (Barrymore) whom…and I'm being completely honest…I don't even remember being introduced. I'm sure it happened at some point in the first boring 20 minutes but I had no recollection of who she was or why she was suddenly along for the ride. I don't know who she is, but I'm sure she regrets her unfortunate involvement when they're suddenly faced with the (alternately) titular alien terminator, which doesn't even make an appearance until the last thirty minutes. Poor Angelo has the local police, the secret service, the military, the freakin' KGB, and now an alien death machine intent on silencing him. And it all culminates in a final showdown where Angelo learns the truth behind it all and learns an unlikely secret about his past. TOP LINE is a blast. It's stupid fun, Franco Nero does a great job, and it moves at a brisk pace once the action kicks in around 25 minutes into the film. I very much recommend fans of low-grade cinema seek this gem out.

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...

A washed-up writer ventures into the Colombian jungle in search of gold. He gets much more than he bargained for, however, when he discovers a 15th century Spanish galleon located inside an alien spaceship, which in turn is inside a mountain! His discovery isn't universally popular, though, and it leads him to be pursued by Neo-Nazis and other shady characters out to kill him.

The above synopsis really makes Top Line sound considerably better than it actually is. The ideas are much greater than the execution. It's a silly story but that often results in entertainment on the screen. At best, this one only achieves this fairly sporadically. With scenes involving the galleon, the cyborg and the alien being the best. For the most part it's a mediocre thriller though. The main fault most probably has to be levelled at the direction which is lacking in any proper focus. It does have some half-way decent make-up effects during the cyborg and alien scenes but maybe it could have done with more. It stars the reliable pairing of Franco Nero as the writer and George Kennedy as a Nazi leader; the latter is dubbed with a strange accent.

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.