"Road House" Blow-by-Blow review
By Adam Goodall
7th December 2009

When Patrick Swayze died earlier this year, we lost a great man. He may not have been the most skilled actor, the most magnetic star, the most ruggedly handsome model, or the most generous philanthropist – but he was a great man nonetheless. Furthermore, he was a great star, and if you were pressed to name films he had been in, nine times out of ten they would have been his films. Ghost; Point Break; Red Dawn; Dirty Dancing; Next of Kin; To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything Julie Newmar – these may have been created in a collaborative process, with other actors and crew, but the most identifiable figure of these films was, is, and always will be Patrick Swayze. Hell, even Donnie Darko has a little bit of the Swayze-dentification thing going on. But arguably the film that is most defined by the presence of the Swayze is that prime cut of 1980s madness, Road House. According to IMDB, Swayze plays the best bouncer in the world, a ‘Cooler’ who’s so cool, he only has one name – Dalton. Brought in to tame a dirty bar in that hotbed of violence, Jasper, Missouri, Swayze makes his presence known like Swayze does, and then he learns about love and life and…um…shit. Whatever he does, though, the film’s place in the history of cinema is defined by the presence of the finely-coiffed, masculine-yet-sensitive 1980s icon, and no matter how bad the film is around him – and word of mouth is, it is – it is nonetheless Swayze’s film.

This is where this blow-by-blow review comes in. Rowdy Herrington’s 1980s Swayze-fest is apparently cheesy enough to be horrible, and horrible enough to gain word of mouth across the internet like some kind of wildfire that’s been put in the corner. And so, it sits in my DVD player, ready to be marvelled in. And you guys have front-row seats.

The usual spoiler warning applies.

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0:01:12 – No matter what age, no matter what gender, people fly in from all over America just to catch a glimpse of Swayze at work.

0:01:48 – Keith David is in this film. Keith Fucking David. Fuck. Yeah.

0:02:04 – Strokeface couldn’t look more out of place here if he was riding a llama and singing ‘Jesus Loves Me’.

0:02:25 – OH MY GOD, IS THAT…IT IS! PATRICK SWAYZE, bopping his head to the music like he’s about to have a fit.

0:02:50 – Swayze asks two rabblerousers to leave with the smouldering intensity of a lemon in the summer.

0:03:09 – Swayze gets stabbed AND HE DOESN’T EVEN FLINCH. Truly a man’s man.

0:03:32 – Swayze walks away from a fight while wearing white slacks. I recant my previous assertion of his position as an epitome of manliness.

0:04:18 – “I’ve come into a little bit of money. So I’m hiring you, Patrick Swayze, to stand around in white slacks and smoulder intensely.”

0:05:29 – “I don’t fly,” Swayze asserts. “Too dangerous.” He says while stitching his cut up while without properly sterilised equipment.

0:06:22 – Swayze is the ultimate philanthropist, giving homeless black people his cars when he doesn’t want them any more.

0:06:56 – Swayze has a TAPE DECK. BAD-ASS.

0:07:36 – Even Kansas City’s most fearsome bikers stand down to Swayze’s smouldering intensity and equally intense mullet.

0:08:54 – Kansas City – where sexual harassment lawsuits are just ten years away.

0:09:11 – Coke deal? Lesbian tryst? Or both?

0:10:04 – You better not be makin’ eyes at any girl in Morgan’s bar, or you’ll be violently manhandled with the force of a gorilla in heat.

0:10:20 – Meet Carrie Ann. She left her home in Texas at the age of fourteen after her daddy beat her because she wouldn’t bring him beer anymore. She went to find her mother, but her mother has been dead for three years – not that she would know, since she ran out of money in Jasper, Missouri, and was taken in by the kindly bar owner and given work on the account that she stay off the heroin she’d become hooked on while in Mississipi.

There. Now you can go to sleep whenever she’s on-screen, because that’s undoubtedly a better back-story than whatever she’s been given.

0:11:10 – HA, IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE HE IS CHANGING THE MEANING OF THE MESSAGE FROM SOMETHING TO LEWD TO SOMETHING THAT ISN’T. HAHAHA. HA.

0:12:26 – Aww, blind band leader and Dalton are old friends. How quaint.

0:12:58 – So, apparently, Dalton’s some kind of fucking folk legend around these parts. Somehow, the image of Swayze ripping people’s throats out is not exactly one I can conjure up in my mind.

0:14:09 – 19 seconds of watching a gurning Deep South man grope a woman’s breasts, followed by a fight. I can’t possibly see how this film got a bad reception from critics and audiences.

0:15:28 – One and a half minutes into a fight, and Swayze’s done nothing. Dis-a-ppointing.

0:16:17 – “You know, I heard you had balls big enough to cum in a dump truck, but you don’t look like much to me.” “Opinions vary.” Oh, you TOLD him, Swayze.

0:18:08 – Dalton discovers Santa Claus’ summer getaway.

0:19:08 – “Goddamnit, those Wensley boys and their heli-ma-copters, always be puttin’ the spookeys up mah mares!”

0:19:50 – What. In the fuck. Is Ben Gazzara doing in this film?

0:21:45 – “Morgan, you’re out of here.” “You arsehole, Dalton, what am I supposed to do?” “There’s always barber college. Hell, I’ll even be your model. I’ve been one for plenty others.”

0:22:21 – It’s Swayze’s way, or the way that doesn’t involve growing a mullet. Tough decision.

0:24:23 – “I want you to be nice…until it’s time to not be nice.” That’s some fucking zen shit right there.

0:25:20 – Nothing gets Swayze angrier that women dancing on tables. Nothing.

0:26:46 – Oh, Steve, don’t you know that you don’t fuck girls in Swayze’s storeroom? That’s strictly for guy-on-guy only.

0:28:45 – Dalton’s favourite pastimes - drinking coffee, reading paperbacks with his shirt off, and perving on Ben Gazzara’s nudie pool parties.

0:29:44 – Carrie Ann’s here! FARMVILLE TIME!

0:31:45 – Ben Gazzara’s such a scamp, disobeying road rules and endangering lives like that! Oh, what shenanigans.

0:33:35 – Ben Gazzara’s lap-dog has one earring and a perm. You know what that means.

0:34:10 – Swayze. Topless. Oiled-up. Tai Chi. LOL.

0:34:39 – Gazzara stares at Swayze briefly from across the river. And thus, a million slash fics are born.

0:36:14 – What is it with Rowdy Herrington and knives? Do they not have guns in Rowdy’s America or something?

0:36:48 – JESUS, another knife!

0:37:50 – And today’s entry to the bad casting annals – Kelly Lynch as an educated woman.

0:38:38 – “Do you enjoy pain?” “Pain don’t hurt.” What is Swayze, fucking Confucius?

0:38:56 – “File says you’ve got a degree from NYU. What in?” “Philosophy.” Oh fuck, he is.

0:39:46 – “Do you ever win a fight?” “Nobody ever wins a fight.” Clearly, the fastest way into a woman’s pants is through making existentialist musings while they’re sewing you up.

0:41:10 – Here’s the thing – why is it necessary for Ben Gazzara’s lickspittle shitface nephew to have a job at that bar? Why that bar? Why is his employment there such a pressing issue that he’s willing to lose a good amount of income by pulling his alcohol from the bar if he isn’t working there?

0:43:32 – As to Gazzara’s lackeys robbing the auto parts store – that just makes no sense in any reality.

0:44:20 – SAM ELLIOTT. YES.

0:45:21 – I just realised – Swayze was calling Sam Elliott from a laundrette. He’s earning all this money, and he’s an important ‘cooler’ at the local bar, and he doesn’t have a phone?

0:47:48 – This bar’s so used to fights, the band actually plays in time with the brawls.

0:48:48 – Turns out smashing people in the head makes Kelly Lynch hot. Who knew?

0:50:40 – “I [Swayze] gotta take you home. We keep talkin’ I’m gonna be making getting you thinking I’m a nice guy.” I gotta take you home. Yet she is driving him to his car. Continuity fail.

0:51:23 – I’ve seen more passionate kisses in travelling puppet shows.

0:52:06 – “We’ve been lookin’ all over for you.” But you never thought to try his house. Nice.

0:52:46 – The blonde bimbo tries to hide her make-up test for the latest Batman film.

0:53:32 – “My grandfather.” “”He looks like an important man.” “He was an arsehole.” Ben Gazzara says that without an ounce of self-awareness.

0:55:35 – Earlier in the film, Swayze mentions he’s not staying in town “for long”. Either he was lying, or that’s the quickest refurbishment of a bar in the history of mankind.

0:57:26 – I’ve seen more convincing fake tans on Oompa Loompas than the one Kelly Lynch is sporting.

0:58:40 – Careful, Kelly, don’t emote too much, you might break something.

0:59:36 – Even the greatest bouncer in the world can’t make a beige sweatervest look cool.

1:00:51 – I didn’t realise the sex scene in Team America was a reference to Road House.

1:02:14 – If there’s one thing the 1980s did right, it was unnecessary and gratuitous nudity.

1:03:15 – I can see Swayze’s ribcage. Ew ew eeeeeeeew.

1:03:42 – Jesus, Gazzara, stop gawking in the shadows and just go over there and make out with him already!

1:04:36 – And so marks the second time Swayze and his ‘old buddy’ Blind Man have spoken in the entire film.

1:05:41 – “The Double Douche.” Sam Elliott – pronunciation fail.

1:06:39 – “I know you,” the bar owner says to Sam Elliott with all the innocence of a pedophile in Disneyland.

1:10:57 – “That gal’s got entirely too many brains to have an arse like that.” Casual misogyny for the win.

1:11:35 – Wait, what? Memphis? Black clouds over Swayze? He killed a man? I don’t fucking believe it.

1:13:59 – The auto parts store just blew up, and you just know Gazzara had something to do to it. And yet, it’s impossible for there to be a logical for reason for such madness.

1:16:24 – Ah, gratuitous and unnecessary nudity. Where would we be without you?

1:17:57 – Lolwut.

1:18:56 – Ben Gazzara, tell me – what can you possibly gain from trashing the bar? What?

1:22:14 – Ladies and gentlemen, the plot is as follows – Ben Gazzara is a rich man, getting rich off the people by taking ten percent of their earnings through some kind of town-wide scheme. Red wasn’t paying, so Gazzara blew up his auto parts store. Then the owner of the Ford dealership gave his condolences to Red and associated with Swayze, so Gazzara trashed his dealership, ensuring his business would suffer a momentous set-back and meaning Gazzara would get less money.

Ladies and gentlemen, the plot.

1:24:00 – The question is as follows – why is it necessary for Swayze to oil up every time he is topless?

1:25:06 – Swayze shows emotion for the first time in the film. Remarkable.

1:26:40 – If anyone knows what’s happening in this scene, please, email me. goldfishinabowl@hotmail.com. Any help would be appreciated.

1:27:45 – Seriously,  Gazzara, how the fuck is murdering everyone in the town and letting them know you’re doing it going to solve anything?

1:28:26 – The Perminator and Swayze – PREPARE FOR THE ULTIM8 SHODOWN.

1:29:07 – Man, this score is so outrageously inappropriate for the scene. This is not a fucking ballet.

1:30:36 – OH, FINALLY, A GUN BEING PUT TO ITS PROPER USE. TOOK YOUR FUCKING TIME.

1:30:47 – OH MY GOD DID SWAYZE JUST RIP THAT GUY’S THROAT OUT OH FUCK HE DID

1:31:36 – “WESLEY! WESLEY! Oh no, wait, that’s Steve. STEVE! STEVE! STEVE!”

1:32:42 – I’m still utterly perplexed as to why Gazzara is so insanely adamant that Swayze must leave town. He won’t work for him when he buys the bar, and he’s got the girl Gazzara apparently likes. This, to Gazzara, justifies killing everyone.

This film. No sense. It makes.

1:34:33 – HE HAS BECOME THE VERY THING HE HATES. AN ASSAULTER OF WOMEN.

1:35:31 – Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today to mourn the departure of Sam Elliott, one of only two good things about this film. He was many things to many people – a stock mentor figure; a grizzly old rogue; a laconic wise-cracker. But to all of us, he was Sam Elliott. Peace out, soul brother.

1:35:56 – Swayze’s crying is the funniest thing in the world. I shit you not, it is hilarious.

1:36:41 – I know this film’s been building up to the crazy for half an hour or so now, but even so, this turn of events was completely unexpected.

1:38:23 – Wait…who is this guy? He’s a bad guy we’ve seen once, tops, and we’re supposed to care that he wants to kill Swayze?

1:39:04 – No matter how many times I see it, I still find it difficult to believe that Rowdy Herrington wants us to believe that Swayze is a badass.

1:40:02 – “No, Swayze. U are the polar bears.” And then Swayze was a polar bear.

1:41:02 – This fight: clearly the inspiration for Quantum of Solace.

1:42:38 – What are you going to do? Scratch him to death?

1:43:24 – Where the hell did they come from?

1:43:45 – Ladies and gentlemen – that’s how you justify vigilantism. Christopher Nolan, Michael Winner take note.

1:44:20 – Wait…this town has a sheriff? Where the fuck has he been for 105 minutes?

1:45:58 – Well, that was a ridiculous film.

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FINAL VERDICT
Road House is an odd beast. Truly a product of a cultural context that places Swayze as an action hero, Kelly Lynch as desirable and beige suits as in vogue, Road House can only be assessed within the context of the cheesiest, most shameful excesses of the 1980s for it to be given the assessment it deserves. However, even within the context of those excesses, Road House is a terrible film. The acting is either wooden (our two shocking leads) or completely over-the-top (Gazzara), with only Sam Elliott actually handing in anything resembling a realistic performance. The score is one of the most misjudged pieces of work I’ve ever heard in a film, and the camerawork is lazy and rote. Furthermore, the script is one of the most ridiculous, illogical, badly-written pieces of tripe I’ve ever heard, jumping from madness to madness without ever stopping for an iota of characterisation. However, the film is enjoyable because of how terrible and cheesy it is, and while it warrants a one out of five, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be silly fun if you’re in the right mood.