On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh loaded a rental van with homemade explosives and parked it at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The explosion took the lives of 168 people and seriously injured over 500 others, and it remains one of the most devastating and heinous terrorist attacks in American history, second only to those that took place on September 11, 2001 (per Britannica). Unfortunately for its production team, “Top Dog” hit theaters only nine days after the attacks, and the uncanny parallels between the film’s story and the Oklahoma City bombing were a little too much for comfort, according to some people. Among numerous other simple cinematic shortcomings, the late Roger Ebert pointed out some of the film’s “chilling reminders of the Oklahoma City bombing.”
“Top Dog” opens with a bombing sequence at a facility similar to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. At another point in the film, the terrorist group (who are actually Neo-Nazis) reveal their plans to strike again on April 20, being that it’s Adolf Hitler’s birthday. It’s also only a day after Timothy McVeigh carried out his own crimes. Critics and fans were unable to look past the incidental correlations that reminded them of the worst tragedy the public had ever endured up until that point, and it nearly tarnished the film’s reputation beyond repair (via Roger Ebert).
