Lolita with prongs (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2006)

The poster for Over the Top features a picture of Sylvester Stallone thrusting his fist aggressively towards the observer. And then next to this there's a picture of a big rig and its lengthy trailer, which leaps off the page like a giant metallic phallus. Could it get any more suggestive? Well, there's also a picture of a hawk that lingers behind Sly's giant head, which is undoubtedly meant to cast him as a tough, uncompromising, macho angel- type figure. Yep, we're talking about another gay 80s film.
But what makes Over the Top different, what differentiates it from films like Top Gun, Rocky III and Commando, is that the manlove is of the NAMBLA variety. Yes, it's Lolita with prongs.
However, the film would like to delude the viewer into thinking its about father and son bonding. You see, it features an arm-wrestling trucker (Stallone) who for the first time in his life is looking after his twelve-year old son  Stallone walked out on his family for some unspecified reason. But because the kid's mother is dying, she thinks it's a good idea for them to spend some time together. But complicating matters is the kid's grandfather, who disapproves of Stallone.
Grandfather's disapproval isn't explored in any great detail (he's a bit of a git and thinks Stallone is a loser for walking out on his family), but under the surface you can detect his secret despair. He knows that Stallone is leading his grandson into a life of sweaty bear-like men and swollen muscles. He knows that at the end of the long, lonely highway lie oiled butts aplenty. So the fight for Stallone's son isn't only a fight for custody, but for his heterosexuality, too.
But from the opening frame it's clear that grandfather's fighting a losing battle. The kid is a cadet and no sooner has he jumped into Sly's cab than he's fanning himself with his cap  he's a prissy little bastard. And then when he goes to a hick bar with his father he orders a tuna salad and gives his dad a lecture on nutrition. Sly rolls his eyes, but only because his son may end up more like Liberace than Fabio.
One of the most astounding scenes in the film is when father and son fight over the radio. Sly wants to listen to some girly power ballad, but his son, resisting his new lifestyle, keeps turning it off. Sly responds to this battle of wills by saying: "Mike, I think we're wearing out this knob here." I laughed for a good two minutes at that.
After this, Sly ups the ante. During the night he pulls off into a lay-by and suggests that they stay in the cab for the night. "A lot of truckers do it," he says. And then he says that his son can rest his head on his shoulder if he gets uncomfortable in the night. Mike declines this offer, but when the morning comes we see that Sly has sneakily placed his head on his son's shoulder. And immediately following this we see a slow-motion montage of father and son working out in the sunset with another power ballad playing  Sly also turns his son's cadet jacket into a sleeveless number; you know, to make him look tough.
More grooming takes place when we see father and son working out in the cab (Sly has a mini gym in his truck!). Mike appears enthusiastic, but after a while he begins resisting again. "There's more to life than just muscles," he says. You can see Sly desperately resisting the urge to say, "No there's not."
But queasier than this scene is the one where Mike visits his father in jail (Stallone loses his son to Mike's grandfather and then he drives his rig into the guy's mansion to try and get his son back!). They talk more like lovers in a second rate romance than father and son. "If I went with you, where would we go?" Mike asks. "Where would we end up?" "Together is all I can guarantee." "You say this now and then you leave." And later Sly says this: "I've got something inside that I want to give you in person." Jail does strange things to a man. Or as far as Sly's concerned, it does nothing at all  he remains a homosexual, spaniel-faced Humbert Humbert.
However, if the first two thirds of the film are all build-up, the finale is the orgiastic pay-off. Here we see Stallone enter a national arm-wrestling competition. Everywhere you look you see bulging arms and orgasmic faces. Plus there are bear beards everywhere. This is what grandfather was scared of.
But somehow Mike manages to disobey his surly guardian and turns up at the tournament. And no sooner are father and son reunited than they're hugging and declaring their love. And it's his son's love than enables Sly to triumph in the most uncinematic sport in film history. Really, where's the drama in two overgrown imbeciles locking hands and trying to outwrestle the other? All you see are grimaces and hands going up and down. It's dull.
But although the final section is tedious and the 'love' story is queasy, I can't write off Over the Top completely. I mean, it has Terry Funk in it. That's got to be worth something. And although I frequently laughed at the film's expense, I was never bored. But still, I can't help but feel that Michael Jackson watches it religiously.