Stallone Runs Amok on the Silver Screen

You love the action genre of film right?
Sure, we all do.
Who could resist the call of the malcontented yet well-meaning protagonist? Who cannot sympathize, nay, empathize with his labored pilgrimage toward redemption and self-realization? Who I ask you? Who?

Today I commemorate the life and art of one Sylvester Stallone. Aside from his comedic works (face it--they’re too bad not to enjoy) and the Rocky/Rambo series (for pressing nostalgic reasons), Mr. Stallone holds but one exemption to his acting catalogue (three guesses which - and it’s not “Get Carter” if that was your initial reaction).

The Sly-man changed the way we view action movies today (if you’re like me, from not-many to none at all). Seriously, this may have been the man for which the art of tag-lining was reinvented. This may have been the man from whence the evil and ever colossal cookie-cutter sprung. Quite simply, this may have been the man whose unskillful acting undermined a generation of filmgoers and exploited the numb-mindedness of the general populace. I assure you this was no easy feat... or wasn’t it?


CLIFFHANGER (1993)

Rest assured, this title is better equipped to describe a bowel movement after a gluttonous feast at Papacano’s All-Night Taqueria than the action-packed story it promotes. Sly Stallone stars as Gabe Walker, a gruff but lovable professional mountain climber/ cliffhanger who is summoned to help find a misguided group of climbers, whereby he inadvertently stymies a twisted plot to take over the world-- or find some money, I forget just now. If the poorly photographed shots of the “Italian Stallion” outfitted in full-body Spandex don’t get your blood a-boilin, John Lithgow’s performance will leave you frankly stunned and probably questioning how God’s view of cruelty fits into his plan for us. In short, this movie will leave you with the urgent desire to kill someone.

COOKIE CUT: Gabe Walker has not yet recovered from watching a cliffhanging gone awry as shown at the onset of the film when set to his mission. He has to reconcile with this baggage expeditiously if he is to full set his attention to cliffhanging and subsequently save the day!

TAG LINE: “Hang on!” Probably should’ve went with “Hang in there!”

WOULD'VE BEEN BETTER IF: Stallone’s character’s name was Cliff Hanger.




OVER THE TOP (1987)

Probably the most pertinent piece of fiction made with the topic of arm wrestling as it’s focus--and that is speaking volumes for the subculture of arm-wrestling movies. Believe it or not, the working title for this one was “Meet Me in the Middle”. Laugh all you want. I’ll wait.

The part Stallone was born to play, this movie boasts what is arguably the coolest character name in cinematic history: Lincoln Hawk. A washed up and disgruntled truck driver, Hawk finds the motivation to turn his life around... you know, make something of himself. His ex-wife is dead--so nothing doing there. At the bottom of a dusty bottle of Keystone Light, he remembers that he has a son that he abandoned long ago. Hello chance for redemption. However, Hawk’s son sees him for exactly who he is: a washed up loser who is incessantly thinking about the next beer. But Hawk is determined to force his son to respect him. How? That’s right, he’s going to enter AND win the national arm-wrestling competition in Sin City.

COOKIE CUT: The Hawk’s only chance to turn his life around is to win the National Arm-Wrestling competition--then and only then can he atone for his pathetic existence. Does this make sense? The only thing, if any, Hawk can gain by winning that contest is being crowned king of the losers (the only prerequisite is that you have to be a truck driver, teamster, or meat grinder).

TAG LINE: “Lincoln Hawk will fight for his son the only way he knows how.” By “fight” we must assume they’re talking about some nitty-gritty arm wrestling action and with a name like “Lincoln Hawk” --well, you’ve gotta put it in the tag line. In fact, “Lincoln Hawk” is a pretty sharp tag line in and of itself.

WOULD'VE BEEN BETTER IF: Lincoln Hawk’s favorite literary character was Atticus Finch.



DRIVEN (2001)

I have it on good authority that “Driven” was originally intended to be a sequel explaining the detailed aftermath of the 1989 Oscar-winning film “Driving Miss Daisy”. Due to assuaged racial tensions in the South and the fact that Jessica Tandy was dead, Warner Bros. decided to waive that screenplay and make a race car movie with Sylvester Stallone instead.

Well-renown capitalist and race car owner, Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), needs to get his car and his driver back to the top of the NASCAR circuit after a series of disappointing finishes. Among the infinite ways to do this, Henry picks the most palpably logical choice: call in washed-up racing great Joe Tanto (Stallone) to shift gears and get things back up to speed (puns intended). Oh-ho, both Henry and Tanto are about to find that the road to victory is nothing compared to the road to self-discovery (puns not intended).

COOKIE CUT: Are you in for a treat? Yes. What you don’t know is that Joe Tanto has his own personal demons to confront that emanate from a tragic racing accident that nearly claimed his life years ago. But he’s got something to prove and in this wise, he is Driven! See how that works? Eh?

TAG LINE: “Welcome to the Human Race”

WOULD'VE BEEN BETTER IF: it actually was the sequel to “Driving Miss Daisy.”



DAYLIGHT (1996)

If you’re like me, you went to this movie expecting to see two hours of daylight stock footage and then found you were in for something much worse--Stallone doing what he does best! Whipping up the cheese and laying it on extra thick! You might not remember a pre-LOTR appearance by Viggo Mortensen but I can assure you it was there. However, you can’t forget the triumphantly horrific performance by Stan Shaw; you may remember him as “Dipper” from the original Rocky and don’t think for a second that the casting director didn’t have this little equation in mind at the drawing board: Stan Shaw + Sly Stallone= acting chemistry run amuck!

New York’s Hudson Tunnel is down for maintenance due to a combination of a leaky water mane and an exploded nuclear waste truck that has sealed off the entrances at both ends. For being such a big tunnel, there are relatively few people trapped inside--five I think altogether, and a dog. As we spend a great deal of the film fixed inside the tunnel with this group of well-contrasting stereotypes, we come to find that aside from the tunnel fastly filling up with water, it’s really not that bad. The unexplained periodic bursts of flames provide more than adequate reading light inside, the wailing and moaning of concrete and steel sound almost melodic, and--well--it’s just nice to get a break from that damnable daylight every once and a while. Luckily, ex-Emergency Medical Services Chief Kit Latura (Stallone) was about to commute through the tunnel and actually witnessed the explosion. Luckily, for some reason, Latura is apparently the only person in the greater New York area that is knowledgeable enough to get in there and rescue those people. Luckily, we get to witness his efforts for an hour and a half. Remember, this movie contains perhaps one of the most emotionally-rot, inspirational lines of dialogue in recent memory that is worthy of Louie Gossett Jr. status. As operations director George Tyrell (Shaw) realizes that Kit Latura is his last defense against losing his pension, Tyrell transforms his disgust to subtle kindness, as he encourages Latura to “Get them back to daylight!”

COOKIE CUT: Latura’s character again has to buck up his courage and forget about that time back in ‘87 when he botched getting some other trapped people to daylight which--I guess--cost him his job. Is it worth it? I mean, if he rescues those people, he can redeem his past fiascos, but if he fails he might be looking forward to some daylight of his own...in hell. What does that mean exactly? I don’t know, but one thing is for sure--about halfway through this movie, you’ll want to locate your abandoned collections of “Where’s Waldo?” and give those another stab (he’s always in the most obvious place).

TAG LINE: “Hold your breath” A confusing tagger at best, it was most likely a clever hint by ad execs with light consciences to warn an unwitting public about how bad this movie stinks.

WOULD'VE BEEN BETTER IF: short-term radiation exposure transformed the trapped victims into vampires or zombies in which case getting them “back to daylight” would, in turn, actually kill them. (what? it would have)


Well, there you have it.

Why did I take this little excursion into the dark seamy underbelly of Hollywood? Well, why not? Stallone is filthy rich and I have comparatively nothing. It’s just one out of my three-point plan to exact my revenge on him.

Lesson learned: we all make mistakes; I guess if life imitates art, some of us are given a second chance to prove ourselves after the world has dismissed us, we are somehow thrust into the same situation we had failed years before with the added pressure of knowing that our last shortcoming had cost human lives. It’s going to take a legendary effort to come out of this one on top. Do we have the fortitude to stand up to the challenge and face this one head on? We’re probably the only one who can do it. Curse those who doubted us and threw us among the refuse of humanity just because we erred once. And curse those people who cried, “Stone him!”

Pray for our souls, Rocky.