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.

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.

This sadly neglected film from 1988 really deserves more attention from aficionados of so-bad-it's-good movies. It might have been a merely incompetent mash-up of Indiana Jones, Romancing the Stone (mainly realized in a cover image that occurs nowhere in the film)), and The Terminator (no, really).. However, the last half hour is so bad it elevates the film to a higher lower bad movie level. It stars reputable B-list Italian actor Franco Nero and a host of unknowns in a story involves discovery of ancient artifacts in Colombia that indicate extraterrestrial contact. There are a few boobs briefly shown and gore is nearly nonextenet, but it's a good bad movie for the time it was made. I recommend being drunk or high or both before you watch it.

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...

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.