Review of Road House (1989) by Robbie B — 19 Jan 2014

I've never really been a Patrick Swayze fan. It's not that I hate him or think he is a bad actor, but he just never starred in movies that caught my attention. I only recently heard of Donnie Darko (which I'll have to review at some point) and God only knows the day I will sit down to watch Dirty Dancing. However, there was one of his movies that caught my attention. It wasn't too hard to find because it's one of those movies that is on television all the time. That movie is Road House. When I saw this movie on television, I only saw a few small parts, but judging by those parts, it seemed like a fun movie. However, I found out this movie was not very well liked receiving 5 Golden Raspberry (or Razzie) Nominations and getting listed on Razzie founder, John Wilson's 100 Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made. However, aside from the critics, a lot of people seemed to like it. So, is it really that bad? Let's find out.

Patrick Swayze plays James Dalton, a New York bouncer who is asked to come to Jasper, Missouri to help straighten up a club called the Double Deuce. Upon his arrival in Missouri, Dalton comes across several friendly people in the town including a farmer (played by Sunshine Parker) who allows him to rent out a room on his farm and a man who runs a store selling auto parts (played by Red West). However, he also comes across a wealthy magnate named Brad Wesley (played by Ben Gazzara) who controls the entire town. Things start to heat up when Dalton begins taking action at the Double Deuce by firing several corrupt employees who turn out to have connections to Wesley. This leads to several bar fights, one of which gets Dalton sent to the hospital where he befriends Dr. Elizabeth "Doc" Clay (played by Kelly Lynch) which, of course, turns into a romantic relationship. The rest of the movie is pretty much Dalton vs. Wesley with Dalton trying to stop Wesley from taking advantage of everyone in the town and Wesley doing anything to hang on to his power. Dalton also has a dark backstory that is mentioned several times throughout the movie about how he supposedly killed a man in self-defense by ripping his throat out with his bare hands and he has trouble letting that part of his past go.

In all sincerity, Road House did have a fair amount of good in it. I liked Patrick Swayze in the role, I liked Sam Elliot as Dalton's former mentor, the fight scenes were fun to watch, and there are plenty of mildly humorous moments and lines. It's a shame that this movie does have some good because overall, it's a mess. First off, the characters are totally clichéd and stereotypical. Patrick Swayze is that rebellious character who is told that 'he can't do it' and he says 'yes I can I'll show you' and at the end of the day he, of course, saves the day. Ben Gazzara's Wesley is the stereotypical rich bad guy. He's snobby, greedy, and power hungry and has low lives working for him and blah blah blah we've seen it before. There really is nothing special here as far as the characters go. If you're expecting complex characters going into this movie you're going to be very disappointed. However, I can forgive the unoriginal characters if the movie did not go in the direction that it did. For the first half of the movie, I was going along with it. It just seemed like another typical 80s action movie that you just sit down and have fun with. However, this movie made a huge mistake: it started to get too serious and too dark. As you might guess, Wesley doesn't take Dalton's rebellious nature lying down. He starts making other people in the town suffer, but it's absolutely ridiculous what lengths he goes to. What does he do? Let's go down the list: Burns down the store that sells auto parts, has a monster truck run through a car shop while customers are in it, and blowing up the farmer's house with the farmer barely getting out alive. I know this guy runs the town, but you're telling me he has the right to destroy whatever the hell he wants even when he comes close to killing people. I'm sorry movie, but that's a lot to buy. Now technically, no one gets killed in any of those incidents, but if all those incidents weren't bad enough, Wesley and his boys eventually do end up killing straight up. Most unfortunate, the person they kill is Sam Elliot. Overall, this movie's biggest problem is that it cannot decide whether it wants to be a fun action movie or a darker, more serious action movie. It tries to be both and that's why it is such a mess. If you want to combine more than one genre to make a movie, that's fine. However, if you take two types of the same genre, odds are your movie is going to end up sloppy no matter what you do.

One other thing I should mention is Dalton's backstory. At one point, Wesley and Dalton are having a conversation with each other and Wesley mentions that he knows what really happened that night. He implies that when Dalton killed the man, it wasn't really out of self-defense. Now, you'd think after hearing that, it would lead to something interesting down the line, but guess what, it doesn't. That detail is pretty much forgotten and it's never even explained what actually happened. If Dalton didn't kill the man out of self-defense, why did he do it? Sorry, but the movie's not going to answer that question.

Overall, Road House is a clichéd mess of a movie that could have worked if it didn't get so dark in the second half. However, I can say that to a certain degree, I see why other people enjoy this movie. This isn't one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but I'm definitely not going to go out of my way to see it again. If you're looking to rent something one night, I say go ahead. If your friends are getting together to watch the movie, I say go ahead. But this movie is not worth a full purchase. Save as much money as you can. At just under 2 hours, Road House could have been a bit shorter and a lot better. It had some enjoyable parts, but they just couldn't make up for such a messy movie. I give it 2/5 stars.