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.

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.

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.

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.

This one is beyond awful and boring!! I watched it in fast-forward!! A bunch of rich white people sailing on boats and in offices for about 20 minutes then one guy gets shot at and runs and runs... he runs out in the middle of nowhere and a car tries to run him over. Next he's being healed by his girlfriend (?) and a phone call from a rich woman in her large bubble bath, then a bunch of people sitting around laughing & eating at a restaurant then some more boring office stuff then the military chasing some people then more office stuff -- then finally the last 30 minutes we see the cheesy alien terminator dude. UGH!!! I didn't like this at all! I was hoping for a few giggles and maybe some laugh out loud fun but within 5 minutes I was hitting the fast-forward button and kept waiting to see something interesting to stop and watch but I didn't. All I saw was one long rich people borefest.

1/10