DVD Review: Road House (Deluxe edition)

Road House (Deluxe edition)
SPHE

Ok, Roadhouse, starring Patrick Swayze, Kelly Lynch, Ben Gazzara, Sam Eliot, Kevin Tighe and Red West, is a guilty pleasure of mine. This is not my proudest declaration, but it is a fact. I like the damn film even as I'm aware of its glaring faults and they are legion. It's generaly as subtle as a groin kick, cartoonish, and overdone. It has achieved "Cult Classic' status which usually means it's not very good but a lot of people like it. It is the Western brought into the eighties and hit with a carnivals' paint palate. I watch at least part of it most every time it's on.

Swayze plays Dalton, the super bouncer (Cooler) brought in to clean up the Double Deuce saloon owned by Kevin Tighe, the kind of dive that gives dives a bad name. Dalton, it is mentioned more than once, has a degree in Philosophy, but makes $500 a night banging heads together (keeping the peace) so you know this is no Bozo, and falls in love (and some dandy lust) with the ER Doctor, Kelly Lynch. Ben Gazzara is awful as the villain, and I mean this in a good way. You'll hate him.

There are a lot of good elements here but they are not quite strung together right to make a first rate movie.

You can skip the extra features for my money, they're no bonus. The interviews with real Bouncers sounds like a better idea than it is.

Still, for me this film's got legs. Directer Rowdy Harrington went over the top a bit much, but if the object was to entertain--he did.

Lee Crawford