Over the Top (1987)

Stallone plays Lincoln Hawk, a father who's been estranged from his ten-year-old son (David Mendenhall) for the boy's entire life. The kid is a US military school brat, bordering on insufferable when we first meet him. At the behest of the youth's mother, Hawk spends time with the kid, hoping to get to know him during a lengthy truck ride across states. Trouble comes from the boy's overbearing grandfather, who wants trucker Hawk out of the picture.
It's a pretty clichéd story of an absent father who has to fight to knock down the walls of his child's preconceived notions and feelings of abandonment, and the bonding can be disappointingly mawkish at times, but it has the charm of a 1980's VHS rental, and I have a fondness for that kind of thing, When in Vegas it tries to be the Rocky of arm wrestling, and it does a half-decent job at it. I was inwardly (but assuredly) cheering for pops during the finale.

3 shoulder pillows out of 5

The Delta Force (1986)

The opening shot sets the tone perfectly, for good or ill. The scene that follows, wherein special ops member Chuck does what other men won't, reinforces it tenfold: it's 80s action from Canon Films with men and guns.
Much of it takes place on an aeroplane, with an ensemble cast that gets very underused. Chief hijacker Abdul (Robert Forster) is mustachioed and menacing. but he didn't reckon on the Deltas doing their thing. They wear covert black duds with a bright US flag patch on the arm lest the audience forget who they're cheering for. If they get tired walking, they've got bikes that shoot mini-missiles. Abdul and his middle eastern cronies are boned - even if Chuck is perpetually late to the party and Silvestri's music sucks.

2½ clear runways out of 5