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Quick Links'Over the Top' Shamelessly Recycles the 'Rocky' FormulaSylvester Stallone Received a Record-Breaking Salary to Star in 'Over the Top''Over the Top' Triggered a Slump in Stallone's Career

Before Sylvester Stallone became an action star, he was a serious actor. His Oscar-nominated performance in the first Rocky film led many critics to compare Stallone to a young Marlon Brando. Subsequent performances in the films Paradise Alley and Rocky II further showcased his disarmingly offbeat personality and magnetic screen presence.

Stallone reached the peak of his popularity in 1985 with the releases of Rambo: First Blood II and Rocky IV, both of which grossed more than $100 million at the domestic box office. However, amid these blockbuster successes, he made one of the biggest commercial miscalculations of his career with the 1987 sports drama film Over the Top, in which he plays a long-haul truck driver who attempts to become a champion arm wrestler...

In honor of Friday's release of The Expendables, we're taking a week-long look at the action films of Sir Sylvester Stallone -- which is to say we're skipping his comedies. Out of respect.

Title: Over the Top

Setting: Present-day 1987, all across America

Our hero: Cross-country truck driver / absentee father Lincoln Hawk (Sylvester Stallone, who also co-wrote the screenplay and must've given himself that ultra-patriotic moniker)

Our villain/s: Rich grandfather Jason Cutler (Robert Loggia); five-time arm wrestling world champion Bob "Bull" Hurley (Rick Zumwalt)

The stakes: Custody of young son Michael (David Mendenhall), which is especially important now that Lincoln's estranged wife is on her deathbed; $100k in prize money; *and* a brand new tractor truck for any champion who just so happened to hock his own off in a moment of Act II desperation!

Filed under: Action, Sports, Warner Brothers

Continue reading Stallone-a-Thon: Over the Top (1987)

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