Road House (1989)

Starring:
Patrick Swayze
Sam Elliott

Plot summary: Patrick Swayze cleans up a small town bar

Read more/less

As the 1980s drew to a close, Hollywood sought to capture the beauty, dignity, and majesty of the decade on film. Road House was the result. Director Rowdy Herrington adapts the classic tale of a powerful warrior hired to protect a poor village to the modern equivalent of barroom bouncers. This update of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai celebrates not feudal Japan, but Reagan's America. This period piece opens with the credits in hot pink, the official color of the 1980s, and boasts the Jeff Healy Band, a one hit wonder rock band (for music fans, it was Angel Eyes).

Patrick Swayze portrays the bouncer Dalton, the epitome of all that was good and decent about the Eighties. His pompadour has the lush volume any action hero would desire. He wears blue jeans that are tight enough to be a felony in several states. He has only one name. We begin with Patrick in a big city bar, paid well and looking good, but missing something in his life. Frank Tilghman, played by veteran bit-player Kevin Tighe, gives him this new purpose when he offers Patrick a chance to clean up his bar, The Double Deuce, out in the bustling town of Jasper.

Much like a great actor will shun his craft for an opportunity to direct a frightfully bad movie, Patrick jumps at the opportunity to run the security team at this podunk truck stop of a bar. He throws all of his belongings in his Mercedes and gives his other Mercedes to a homeless man living outside his apartment, thus illustrating the trickle down theory in action.

We first see the Double Deuce along with Patrick, and what a sight. Men throw beer bottles, women strip on tables, and the band plays behind a chicken wire cage. This would be the featured Jeff Healy Band, with the blind Jeff Healy playing lead guitar and vocals. First it should be noted that the Double Deuce is so rough a bar that men throw beer bottles at a blind man. Second it should be noted that the Jeff Healy Band play the Double Deuce every night. I think they sleep in a bunk bed out back. If you find the town of Jasper, they may still be playing there.

Frank puts Patrick in charge of the bar, and in the customs of the time, Patrick immediately begins firing people. The waitress for dealing drugs, the bartender for stealing out of the till, and the former head bouncer for being the former head bouncer. Patrick is not merely a bouncer, but follows the Eighties tradition of coming up with a cooler name for his mundane profession, which ironically is a "cooler." Irony was also very popular in the decade. Then he gives his bouncer minions a briefing that Quentin Tarantino would borrow heavily from for Reservoir Dogs. It consists of the three rules:

1. Never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. It is implied that his bouncer minions are also supposed to give 110%, realize there is no I in team, and win just one for the Gipper.
2. Take it outside. This is because the lighting is much better outside.
3. Be nice. This is because Patrick Swayze is a pretty action star. Unlike the Bruce Willises of the world, who must be brutal to overcome their obscene ugliness, the Swayzes and in some cases the Mel Gibsons can afford to be gentle ass kickers. Luckily this gives us the opportunity to see his bouncer minions get punched several times in the face before they intervene.

Patrick Swayze is a cooler with a philosophy. The philosophy is summed up as "it's my way or the highway," all the more powerful as a mantra because it rhymes. As you can imagine, his character does have a degree in philosophy, from NYU. The director finds small but significant ways to enshrine the Eighties, when 47% of philosophy graduates held jobs in the alcohol and alcohol-related industries.

Also very popular in the decade was watered-down Zen minimalism. Patrick embraces this philosophy in everything he does. When he enjoys the stylings of the Jeff Healy Band, he only nods his head in a vaguely self-assured manner. When a brawl is about to break out, he does nothing until absolutely necessary, such as after he has been stabbed. He also uses the philosophy in the management of his bouncer minions. They see a bad situation and look over at him as if to ask, "Should I go over here and get my ass beat?" Patrick just nods, effectively saying, "Yes, go over there and have him beat on you for a few minutes, and then I'll be over to help when he gets winded." Large barroom brawls go on for so long without him doing anything that you know when he does do something it will be cool. And when he does join the fray, you know it is cool, because Patrick does it in slow motion.

The problem Rowdy Herrington faces with telling the gripping story of a cooler trying to clean up a bar is that there is no villain among the drunken hicks of Jasper. But what if the drunken hicks were somehow part of a master plan to take over the Double Deuce, and therefore control the drinking industry of Jasper? Enter Brad Wesley as portrayed by Ben Gazzara, who would go on to play Jackie Treehorn in The Big Lebowski almost a decade later.

Brad represents the worst of the 1980s. He buys fast cars but drives them recklessly instead of giving them to the homeless. He amasses a fortune in business but uses it to manipulate and terrorize a small town instead of using it to amass a greater fortune. He makes grandiose boasts to Patrick like, "JC Penny's is coming here because of me." This kind of influence over bargain department store chains combined with his apparent control of all liquor within hundreds of miles of the Double Deuce has given him an iron grip on the town.

The director has a delicate task in making sure the Brad and Patrick cross paths in such a way that they are destined to have a final showdown. Patrick rents a place from a poor backwoodsman named Emmet, played by Sunshine Parker (whose previous roles include "Old Codger" in Any Which Way You Can, "Hobo" in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, and "Old Drunkard" in Double Revenge) in a rare role where his character has a name. Emmet lives across the lake from Brad's 24-hour party mansion; he and Patrick are constantly inconvenienced by the debauchery.

Brad Wesley may have control of all alcohol everywhere and the rest of the town in his back pocket, but Frank Tilghman has the best bouncer/cooler in the world. Some people may be surprised that Patrick is the world's best cooler, not because of any shortcomings Mr. Swayze may have, but because it is hard to conceive of the cooler industry as one with an international ranking system. But within about a week of working at the Double Deuce, Patrick has gotten rid of the fighters, convinced the women to dance on the floor with their clothes on, installed new lighting, rebuilt the sound stage, put in some pool tables, and improved the clientele by busing in upper middle class patrons to replace Jasper's undesirables. This may seem difficult to believe since Patrick is only one man, but his best friend Wade (played by another future Big Lebowski star Sam Elliott) appears mid-movie to help him, who happens to be the #2 bouncer in the world.

Brad is infuriated by this, launching a campaign of retribution against the innocent, non-alcohol industry working people of Jasper. He destroys a used car lot that was late on its protection payments using a monster truck (the Official Absurd Vehicle of the Eighties), possibly the best monster truck movie sequence ever. He then unleashes his henchman Jimmy the greasy punk, played by the always delightful television movie actor Marshall R. Teague. He wears a cross earring to symbolize the rise of extreme evangelicalism that sought to destroy the raw, tight-pantsed sexuality as embodied by Patrick Swayze. Jimmy the greasy punk is an arsonist/martial arts expert, and sets fire to an auto parts store, which judging from the 30-foot fireball, unfortunately seems to have been storing high explosives in the back room.

Patrick senses that the final confrontation is approaching, so he begins training, which involves a lot of punching bag work and rope climbing. It is not well known that bouncer training looks a lot like junior high gym class. Sam Elliott counsels Patrick, finally convincing him that the worthless town of Jasper is not worth dying for. This is right before Brad Wesley has him savagely beaten and killed, thus threatening to cripple the movie by removing 75% of the acting talent.

In the middle of the night, Patrick awakens to find Emmet's house on fire. After the house explodes, Patrick spots Jimmy the greasy punk getting away on a motorbike. To anyone who remembers that Patrick is the greatest bouncer in the entire world, it should be no surprise that he runs the arsonist down, dragging him off the bike. They fight hand to hand for a few minutes, until Jimmy the greasy punk announces, "I'm going to kill you the old-fashioned way," and pulls out a gun. I don't understand it, but I love it. Patrick is able to kick the gun away, and in a triumph of good over evil, kills him in what could be argued as self-defense.

Patrick, now that his best friend is dead and his rental home has exploded, must destroy the evil empire of Brad Wesley. Brad's home is guarded by four gunmen, while Patrick is armed only with his cunning and his Mercedes with a brick on the accelerator as a diversion. Inside the house, he is able to take all four of them down by using one as a human shield, shooting two of them, and dropping a stuffed polar bear on the last.

In the final showdown with Brad Wesley, Patrick shoots him in the leg, but can't finish him off in cold blood. He reveals his tragic flaw to be his utter incompetence when he turns his back on the arch-villain, who promptly pulls a gun. But just when we think all is lost, Patrick is saved by the Deus Ex Emmet, as he leads the shotgun-toting villagers to slaughter Brad Wesley, JC Penney's or no JC Penney's.

When the sheriff arrives to deal with the dead bodies, each of the villagers says poignantly, "I didn't see anything." And as the code of silence once again protects the American Heartland from proper legal investigation, we fade out, leaving the world's greatest bouncer to find another town to right the wrongs and win the hearts of the common folk. I would have to say that Road House is the greatest movie I have ever seen.