Film Review: Road House (1989)

There are guilty pleasures and there are guilty pleasures that age like wine. And there are guilty pleasures that grow into category by themselves. One such guilty pleasure is Road House, 1989 action film directed by Rowdy Herrington, known as one of the most underrated films of its time and one of rare cinematic tributes to certain underappreciated profession.

Protagonist, played by Patrick Swayze, is James Dalton, “cooler” or head bouncer whose superb martial skills, professionalism and ability to handle all kinds difficult situations made him a legend and one of most sought talents by owners of night clubs all over America. One of those is Frank Tilghman (played by Kevin Tighe), man who recently became owner of Double Duece, roadside bar in Jasper, Missouri, and wants to invest in its improvement. However, the bar is pretty rowdy and violent place and needs someone like Dalton to puts it in order. Dalton agrees, but only under condition that he has free hands in handling personnel. His thoughtful and calculated methods of establishing and maintaining peace work, but, along the way, he had Pat McGurn (played by John Doe), one of the employees, fired over embezzling funds. Pat, however, happens to be a cousin of Brad Wesley (played by Ben Gazzara), powerful local tycoon who soon begins to see Double Deuce as challenge to his authority. Dalton easily win initial scuffles with some of Wesley’s goons, but gets minor injury and goes to hospital where he meets Dr. Elizabeth “Doc” Clay (played by Kelly Lynch), with whom he would start romantic relationship. She, however, used to be object of Wesley’s desires, and tycoon begins to escalate conflict, leading Dalton to ask help from his old mentor Wade Garrett (played by Sam Elliott).

Road House received quite hostile reception by critics, and this reputation reflected in four Razzie nominations. Although some source claim that the film was flop, actual numbers tell about very good box office results, and even more impressive performance at home video market, which gradually helped it to gain some sort of cult status. So, who is right? Critics or the regular audience?

Let’s start with arguments of those who want to characterise Road House as a bad film. They could be found in the script by R. Lance Hill (credited as “David Lee Henry”) and Hillary Henkin (the latter best known for her work on Wag the Dog a decade later). It is problematic both in terms of structure and content. It starts by establishing intriguing premise and character only to use it in weak, unoriginal plot that looks like it was carbon-copied from westerns and artificially transplanted to late 1980s rural America. Script also asks audience to suspend more disbelief than usual. So, the protagonist is described as someone with philosophy degree from one of the most prestigious universities in America, yet forced to make ends meat in one of the less appreciated lines of work in modern society (scriptwriters, to their credit, give Dalton some imaginative dialogue lines that sound just like coming from someone with superb education). Script is full of details that are introduced only because look “cool”, despite not being likely in real life. One example is Dalton renting a room at a farm which is right next to Wesley’s sprawling and luxurious mansion. Dalton’s romantic interest happens to be Wesley’s romantic interest, making what was supposed to be business dispute into increasingly personal and bloody conflict. While all characters are archetypal, the main villain is almost parodically over the top. Wesley acts with incredible stupidity and escalates the conflict to his ultimate detriment, in a way that is hard to reconcile with someone who built enough wealth and political clout to have entire city in his pocket. This becomes problem especially in the second half of the film, which features almost surreal amounts of spectacular violence. Ironically, the ending of Road House, despite being over the top, is actually part that has most connection with real life, being very loosely inspired by events that took part in Skidmore, Missouri few years earlier.

On the other hand, Road House is more than competently directed by Rowdy Herrington. Relatively high budget is put to good use, pace is great and audience barely notices running time of almost two hours. Cinematographer Dean Cundey insists on bright colours making the film look extremely pleasing to the eye. But the real author of Road House is Joel Silver, legendary producer known for some of the most popular and influential action films in late 20th Century. When making this film he knew what content the audience wanted and tried his best to deliver as much of it as possible. This included superb action ranging from Eastern martial arts to less refined forms of street brawling; luxury cars and monster trucks (the latter being used in one of the more surreal scenes near the end); plenty of nudity (mostly female, although Swayze also appears nude in one scene). Road House features even some content you are not likely to see often in martial arts films, like explosion and shoot outs, the last including use of squibs rarely seen since gritty and ultra-violent 1970s crime films. Another important ingredient of the film is music, which includes traditional score by composer Michael Kamen and soundtrack comprised of various blues rock songs, some written and performed by blind Canadian musician Jeff Healey who also appears in the film in the role of Dalton’s old friend and leader of Double Deuce band.

Road House also benefits from good cast. The film was built around its main star Patrick Swayze, who had recently became immensely popular due to his role in Dirty Dancing. After already establishing himself as romantic lead (which would later confirm with Ghost), Swayze tried to prove himself as an action star. Although his stature initially made him look too small for a bouncer (which was used as recurring joke in film), Swayze worked hard to improve both his physique and martial arts. The result of such efforts, which also led to injury, is quite impressive on screen. Swayze is formidable as a man who, in best Hollywood tradition of leading men, talks little but acts decisively and efficiently. He establishes and maintains charisma throughout the film, but also allows his character to remain vulnerable and human, haunted by past incident that had left him with bloodied hands. He easily overshadows the rest of the cast, which includes Gazzara who can’t overcome silliness of his villainous character. Kelly Lynch does very well with seemingly thankless role of protagonist’s love interest, aided by good chemistry with Swayze. The real strength of the film lies in the small army of character actors who give excellent performance even when playing one-dimensional roles of Double Duece staff, townspeople of Wesley’s henchmen. Even Julia Michaels makes good impression in exploitative and utterly thankless role of Wesley’s trophy girlfriend which, among other things, has her perform defiant striptease number in one of the more surreal scenes that takes place in Double Deuce.

In the end, there are many reasons why Road House represents such great guilty pleasure. It delivers what is expected of it to targetted audience. It provides almost perfect slice of the fashion, hairstyles, social mores and music to those nostalgic towards 1980s. It can also be appreciated as some sort of unintentional parody of action films characteristic of its era. But its most valuable part is a single scene in first part, during which Dalton calmly and methodically explains to his staff what is expected of them and how are they supposed to do their job. This represents one of the most concise and effective management lessons displayed in cinema and was later actually used as part of real life training for various organisations, including law enforcement. With such positive and educating effect on viewers, Road House might be pleasure which is actually not guilty at all.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo
Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax
Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc
Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA

Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax
Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7