Right time for my second post of the year which is another movie and this one goes back to the 80s again (well the tail end of the decade that is) as it will be on the classic action movie, Roadhouse. So let's give it a looksee....
The film starts with well known professional bouncer or "cooler" Dalton (Patrick Swayze) who is recruited by businessman Frank Tighlman (Kevin Tighe) who owns a bar/club called the Double Deuce in Jasper Missouri. Frank is having problems in cleaning out the unwanted element in the bar as fights break out every night and he intends to invest money in the place to renovate it so he needs Dalton's help keep the place running trouble free. When Dalton arrives in town, he takes a lodging at a local farm and he soon finds out the town is under control of the local business magnate, Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara). As Dalton starts work in the double deuce he dismisses some of the unruly employees, which soon causes unrest with Wesley as several of them were connected through him, one in particular being his cousin, who was the bartender. Wesley then sends some of his henchman to intimidate him into giving the former bartender's job back, but Dalton fights them off and sustains a knife wound. Later Dalton goes to the hospital where he meets a doctor, Elizabeth "Doc" Clay (Kelly Lynch) who gives him stitches and after they talk they develop a friendship and soon become romantically involved.
Wesley later invites Dalton to his mansion where he offers him to work for him but Dalton refuses, after this Wesley then punishes the club's business by preventing the liquor from being delivered as he sends his thugs, whom Dalton manages to fight off with help from his friend and mentor, the aging cooler, Wade Garrett (Sam Elliott) who arrives on the scene. Meanwhile Wesley also as part of his intimidation tactics decides to punish the local businessmen in town, who all owe money to Wesley as part of his extortion rackets, and he does this in an effort to try and sicken Dalton into leaving town. Wesley one evening shows up at the double deuce with his men, including his main henchman, Jimmy (Marshall Teague) and he has them fight Dalton and his bouncer staff along with Wade for his own amusement, but then he calls it off after a while and he warns Dalton things aren't working out. The following night, Dalton who is now enraged by Wesley's muscling tactics to get him to leave town, argues with Elizabeth who shows up at his place at the farm and during their row there is a loud explosion as the farm house is destroyed, but Dalton manages to rescue the owner, Emmett (Sunshine Parker) just in time. Dalton then spots Jimmy fleeing the scene on a motorcycle and he jumps him and they engage in an intense fist fight, which ends with Dalton killing Jimmy by ripping his throat out with his bare hand.
The following day Dalton while at the bar receives a call from Wesley, who gives him an ultimatum that either Wade or Elizabeth will die and he must choose who and he hangs up on him. At this point Wade stumbles into the bar who has been badly beaten by Wesley's men, at this point Dalton decides to give in and leave town with Wade and take Elizabeth with him. As Dalton goes to the hospital to convince Elizabeth to leave she refuses as she is sickened by Dalton's own violent behaviour and that he is no better than Wesley. Dalton then goes back to the bar to find Wade has been murdered as he has been stabbed with a knife in his chest, which Dalton tearfully removes and he sets off in a vengeful rage to confront Wesley for the last time.....
There is no doubt that while Roadhouse is incredibly cheesy it is also a very entertaining film as well and its also perhaps because it dares to be so cheesy that it actually works really well as a film. The story is of course nothing original, as its basically like a good old fashioned western (sorry that should be modern!) with the new cowboy (i.e. Dalton) coming to town to sort out the bad sherriff (i.e. Wesley) with his girl, Elizbaeth at his side. Dalton of course is a far more intellectual and sophisticated cowboy so to speak in that he is also a philosophy graduate and he uses his brains as well as his brawn to resolve situations. Wesley on the other hand is more like a childish bully who insists on having everything his own way and he takes great sadistic pleasure in toying with townsfolk and the local businessmen as well. And Wade Garrett is the good old fashioned, charming and genial cooler, who is old but still has a few teeth left and knows how to fight. The film while it wasn't a big success on its release and it wasn't criticallty well received it has over time become more popular and it has gained a cult following since. And to this day Road House even pops as references in popular culture and in television shows such as in Family Guy, as the main character Peter Griffin is often shown in some scenes where he will kick someone and say "Road House!".
Performance wise Roadhouse isn't too bad, with Patrick Swayze giving a likeable performance as the cool headed tough guy, Dalton who goes to town to clean things up. Swayze has several highlights in the film and he does really well in the film's fight scenes, especially the fight scenes in the bar and the main fight he has with Wesley henchman, Jimmy. Swayze also get's some good lines as well such as the scene where he first briefs the bar staff on how he will run things and he says to them "If someone get's in your face and calls you a cocksucker I want you to be nice" and one of the staff asks "Isn't being called a cocksucker personal?" and Dalton says "No its two nouns combined to illicit a prescribed response!". And one of the other bouncers ask "What if someone calls my mother a whore?" and Dalton says sardonically "Is she?!". Another good line comes later when Dalton confronts some of Wesley's thugs as they try to enter the bar and he says to them "Sorry we're closed" while a band plays in the background and the placed is filled up with people, and the thug says "Well what are all these people doing here?" and Dalton replies "Drinking and having a good time" and the thug says "Well that's why we are here" and Dalton grabs his boot, which has a concealed knife and says "You're too stupid to have a good time!!". And one of Swayze's best moments is when he talks to Elizabeth in a heated exchange where he tells her "I've seen Wesley's type a dozen times, he keeps taking and taking until someone takes him! And when Brad Wesley hired me he fucked up! I'm only good at one thing, Doc and I never lose!". Swayze also nicely deals with Dalton's weary but good humoured attempts at hearing the same thing being said about him that for the line of work he is in that "I thought you would be bigger!".
Ben Gazarra is also really good in his role as Brad Wesley, the town's leader who controls all the business and he tries to intimidate Dalton into leaving. Ben also has some good moments in the film, such as in the scene where he invites Dalton around to his mansion and we hear some cheesy 80s music play in the background as his girlfriend does aerobics, and he yells "Will someone shut that shit of???! I can't listen to that crap! Its got no heart." Another good scene is where his men come back having failed to intimidate and beat up on Dalton, and he punches one of them in the face and knocks him down "You know what I don't like about you? You're a bleeder! You are a messy bleeder! You have no endurance for pain!" and as he is helped back up he says "You know what you're gonna be fine and you know why? Because I like you" and then he punches the man in the face again, knocking him to the ground and he says "Get this piece of shit coward out of here!". Ben has another good scene where Wesley has his thugs demolish one of the town's businessman's car dealership business, and he says to Elizabeth "Well Elizabeth you better get Dalton out of here, because if you don't he's goin down, and I won't lose a second's sleep over it!".
Sam Elliott is also really good in his role as Wade Garrett, the charming, aged cooler, who despite his age still can throw his fists. Elliott has some good moments in the film, such as in the scene where he arrives at the double deuce to find Dalton being beat up by Wesley's men, and one of them says to Wade "You wanna fight dickless?!" and Wade says "Well I sure ain't gonna show my dick!" after which he hits the thug in the balls and says "I bet that hurts don't it?!". Another funny line he has is when Wade dances with Elizabeth and after she leaves to go to the toilet, he watches her fine bottom wiggle as she goes and he says "That girl has entirely too many brains to have an ass like that!". And in the same scene Elliott shares a good moment with Swayze when Wade confronts Dalton over the guilt he feels of his past when he had to kill someone in self defence. And Wade says to him "When you got a guy sticking a gun in your face you got two choices, you can either die or you can kill the motherfucker! Why don't you be a little more philsophical about it and cut it the fuck loose?!".
The supporting are also fine as well, which includes Kelly Lynch as Elizabeth, the doctor who falls for Dalton and she was also a former lover of Wesley's. Kelly's best scene comes when Elizabeth argues with Dalton about staying in town and she says "You think you're gonna save these people from Brad Wesley?! Well who's gonna save them from you?!". Their first scene together is also quite a nice one when Elizabeth gives Dalton his stitches for his knife wound and she says as he leaves "You know for this line of work I thought you would be bigger!" and Dalton smiles and says "Gee! I never heard that before!". Kevin Tighe is also good in his role as the rather meek but ambitious businessman, Frank Tilghman who hires Dalton, and he get's a good line where he says to Dalton at the start of the film "I own a club called the Double Deuece. It used to be a real sweet deal, but now its the sort of place where they sweep up the eyeballs at closing time!". Red West as the character Red Webster also has some good witty moments in the film such as in the scene where after Red's auto parts business is trashed by Wesley's men, Dalton asks how much Wesley takes and does everyone pay and Red says "Does a hobby horse have a wooden dick?!".
Marshall Teague while he hardly gives the film's best performance as he essentially just plays the film's main henchman, Jimnmy, and as such just kicks ass and sets fire to things, he does provide some good moments as well. And Teague's fight scene with Swayze in the Dalton vs Jimmy showdown remains one of the film's highlights, and Teague delivers a few priceless line such as:
Jimmy: (to Dalton) Prepare to die!
Dalton: You are such an asshole!
And later during the fight Jimmy makes the hilarious confession that during their fight that "I use to fuck guys like you in prison!" and later as he starts to kick Dalton's ass he says "Damn boy! I thought you were good!" and Dalton says "Go fuck yourself!" and they fight on.
And lastly I will mention Jeff Healey, who provides a nice little performance as the blind guitarist Cody, who's band plays at the double deuce most nights. Healey also get's some good lines in the film such as when Dalton first goes up to meet with Cody after their gig at the deuce and he quietly hands him a towel and says "You don't play too bad for a blind boy" and Cody quips back "Yeah and I thought you would be bigger!". And also slightly later as one of the hotheaded bouncers, Morgan (played by Terry Funk) asks what the story with Dalton is, Cody says "The story is, you fuck with him and he'll seal your fate!". Jeff Healey who had been blind for most of his life, sadly died years later from cancer in 2008.
Moving quickly onto the techy side (well kind of!) and the director Rowdy Herrington does a good job here in keeping the pace nice and tight and the action pretty thick and fast, and while its a no brainer of a film, he still knows how to keep the audience engaged in the action. And Michael Kamen provides a good score for the film which is akin to his score from Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, but it suits the film's sleazy and dramatic tone pretty well.
So flaws, how flawed is Road House????? Well how harsh do you want to be?? You could argue of course that Road House is a load of utter tosh and is basically a brainless lot of fist fighting, which features some nice boobs in it as well! ;-) And in both instances you would be absolutely right! Road House is also hardly original or in any sense innovational, but then again why would it be as it attains to be nothing more than an action movie. And the action in the film is fun but serves to also highlight the film's lack of overall plot and there are also one or two cringeworthy moments in the film as well such as the scene where Denise, Wesley's girlfriend performs a corny strip tease in the double deuce or the scene where Wesley has a loud house party where he invites girls back and some numpty who he loves because he dances like a complete dick!
I also thought the film's ending is pretty farcical and OTT (but again what do you expect I guess!) with (PLOT SPOILER) Dante ready to kill Wesley at his mansion but he let's him off the hook only to have the local businessman including Kevin and Red, shoot him dead, and they conveniently stash the shotguns away in time before the police arrive! Not only that but the men all deny any knowlegde of anything that happened that would cause Brad Wesley to lie on the floor in a pool of his own blood, with mutliple shotgun wounds in his chest and we can imagine that its a film the police will just sweep it all under the carpet and probably say "Aww forget it, he was an asshole anyway!". And again its the Hollywood machine producing another happy ending where logic, reason and all common sense go out the window and we are left with an ending that really insults an audience's intelligence. Or perhaps I shouldn't look into it that deeply??? ;-)
Anyway despite all that, Road House is still one of the most corny and purely enjoyable action films of the 1980s and to this day its still a fun film which is worth a watch every now and then.
And so with that I shall leave ye there. Road House!
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