Road House
Patrick’s Swagnum Opus
Road House (1989)
4 / 5
There are two Patrick Swayzes. The biggest one is the 1991 People magazine sexiest man alive: the romance-movie heartthrob that had the time of his life pulling Baby out of the corner and spooned with Demi Moore in front of a potter’s wheel while the Righteous Brothers rhapsodized about hungering for your touch. But that Patrick Swayze is not the one that stars in Road House. A look at Swayze’s filmography makes it pretty easy to see a guy who was a great dancer (and cut like a thoroughbred) but really really wanted to be a big-time action star. He was a would-be tough guy hamstrung by the fact that he was just too darn pretty. But that second Swayze, the two-fisted hero, seems like the one he really wanted to be.
Road House is a towering entry in the Dude Movie™ canon, and it is hard to view the film as anything other than Swayze’s tough-guy manifesto. As Dalton, he works to thread an interesting needle here, turning the sexiest man alive’s perfect jawline and cheekbones into something sharp-edged (though that edge hides a wounded soul in search of a safe place to heal, perhaps a holdover angle from his romantic-lead self). He totally owns his body (which is at peak svelte here), but does NOT dance. He turns his dancer’s grace into something pantherish and karate-kick predatory. And of course he does that against a backdrop of whiskey-rasp, blues-rock, outlaw-country wailing, courtesy of the little-known Jeff Healy Band.
The movie is wall to wall 80s action movie tropes. There are corny lines and stock supporting characters. There are explosions. There are hot blondes with enormous hairdos and a cavalier attitude about pulling their boobs out (in this kind of movie they’re not topless and they don’t have bare breasts–they’ve got their boobs out, and there’s a difference). There’s a Very Villainous Villain™ with a barely-explained but somehow dastardly plan; a plan that means he’s a danger to the whole town and ultimately means it’s okay for him to be killed in an act of collective vigilante justice. And there’s Sam Elliott; ‘nuff said.
4 stars of 5: It’s a so-dated-it’s-timeless classic that deserves a watch every once in a while, just for nostalgia’s sake. Rest in peace, Patrick the two-fisted hero.