Over The Top

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This week, the guys put on their most sleeveless of shirts, got greased up, and sat down to watch Sylvester Stallone's tribute to the brave men and women who look like men in the world of professional armwrestling, a world that, as best as their research was able to discover, does not, in fact, exist. But they weren't going to let that stop them!

The bald guy has Angelina Jolie's lips growing out of his neck!

Stallone stars as Lincoln Hawk (or Hawks or Hogg or Hogs...nobody's really sure what his last name is, including him), a truck driver by day and an armwrestler by night! Really, it's Flashdance, but with sweaty guys grunting instead of Jennifer Beals dancing. He wants to reconnect with his son, Mike, on a cross-country trip to see Mike's mother, Christine, who is in a hospital somewhere, dying of some kind of cancer, before heading off to Las Vegas, where he will compete in the world armwrestling championship, another thing that doesn't exist, so he picks Mike up on the day the graduates from military school at the age of 12, which we're pretty sure isn't a thing.

Submitted without comment.

Unfortunately, Mike's grandfather, Jason Cutler (played by the stunningly tanned Robert Loggia), doesn't like Hawk, so he dispatches a bunch of goons to get Mike back. There's also a giant lump of gristle with a porn mustache named Bull (the guy, not the mustache) who is stalking Hawk across the country to challenge him to a private armwrestling match to see which of them in better.

And that's when things get dark...

To be honest, pretty much everybody, including his own son, really thinks Hawk is a bit of a waste of oxygen. The only person willing to give him a chance is his ex-wife, and one has to assume it's because she knows she'll be dead soon. She won't be around to see him bone it all up, so she really has nothing to lose.

Mike starts out reacting as any right-thinking person would when confronted with spending three days in a confined space with Sylvester Stallone, which is to run away as quickly as possible. Hawk recaptures him, and forces him to armwrestle other kids so he can gamble on it, makes him drive a truck illegally despite only being 12-years-old, and causes him to miss seeing his mother one last time before she dies.

When Mike finally realizes what a straight-up douche canoe his father is, he does a runner, heading back to the comfort of his grandfather's money piles. When Hawk uses the most subtle and sensible way to get his son back that he can think of--by driving his truck through the front of Cutler's house--he gets arrested and thrown in the clink, not only jeapordizing whatever chances he may have with his son, but also his appearance at the armwrestling championships!

But wait! Hawk gets visited by Cutler's lawyer, a Gerry Anderson marrionette from Thunderbirds Are Go!, who offers to drop the charges if Hawk is willing to sign-off on Mike's guardianship. As armwrestling is obviously way more important than creating a lasting bond with your one and only child, Hawk agrees immediately, heads to Vegas, sells his truck (for betting money), and gets into the competition.

Hawks! You'll never amount to anything, you pale bastard!

Meanwhile, Mike digs through his mother's personal items and finds the tens of letters Hawk wrote to him over the last twelve years, and decides that his criminally negligent father who lives in a truck (that he now no longer owns) is a much better person to lead him through life than his incredibly rich grandfather with a big mansion. Following in his father's criminal footsteps, he steals a truck and makes his way to Vegas to find his father.

Will Mike get there in time? Will Hawk win the armwrestling championship and the accompanying prize of a $250,000 truck? Could Robert Loggia get any more tan? Tune in to find out!

Larry is terribly disappointed to find out that this film doesn't hold up after all these years. He really loved it as a kid, and now...Well...Not so much. He thinks Mike is a giant puss.

Derek cannot get over how much Robert Loggia resembles a piece of beef jerky, that tanned sonofabitch. He also can't understand a word Stallone says, and he also thinks Mike is a whiney little punk. He is also shocked to discover that there was a line of Over The Top action figures!

This was a thing!

There was even a playset!

Jake knows that this movie is stupid, but he still can't help but enjoy watching. Like the others, he is confounded by everyone's inability to remember what Stallone's character's last name is, including Stallone. Also, Mike is a wimpy little nancy-boy.

There's also a conversation about Prince in The Lobby, a few new flicks Coming Soon, the worst of 1987 in Larry's List, Jake-ing Off over some cool improv podcasts, and the rules of Guydom are discussed Inside My Head.

So turn your hat around, spray some fake sweat on, and pin down this week's show!