Movie #4: Top Line

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Topline" (1988) is an Italian made Sci-Fi film directed by Nello Rosseti and stars Franco Nero, Deborah Moore, George Kenedy, and Mary Stavin. The American video release title is "Alien Terminator." This was actually one I haven't seen before.
Franco Nero is one of my favorite Spaghetti Western actors. He starred as the coffin-dragging gunslinger "D'Jango" (1966) in the western of the same name. He was also the star of "Enter the Ninja" (1981.)
In this film, he is an author/adventurer who is seeking fortune and glory in the Columbian Jungle (so far an Indiana Jones ripoff complete with a fedora-wearing hero) when he uncovers a crashed flying saucer that has been there for hundreds of years. When he tries to cash in on the find by contacting a buddy at a New York newspaper, he finds himself a hunted man. Every agency in the world wants him dead because of what he stumbled across.

Click the box to watch the foreign language trailer. (couldn't find the english version, but hey... the whole movie is on youtube if you wanna watch it.)



Except for the discovery of the flying saucer, the first hour of this film doesn't seem like a Sci-fi flick at all. It has some gun fights and a couple of car chases... complete with explosions. If it wasn't for Franco Nero starring in it I might have been tempted to turn it off and find another 
'Sci-Fi"movie to watch. If you can make it to the last 30 minutes, things get interesting. For one, a Terminator-like robot shows up and chases Franco and his girlfriend. One scene has the robot getting his face melted off by firecrackers!

Then there is another Terminator after them and then they fight a shape-shifting alien! Yes, the cheese gets thick in the end causing the movie to totally redeem itself as a Sci-Fi film.
Check it out if you dare. It's best watched late at night when you are very sleepy and fighting to stay awake. But seriously... of all the scenes ever made of a robot assassin getting his face melted off by firecrackers... this one has to be way up there with the best!

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from the land of melting terminators.

XXX