That above was told to me by a teenage neighbor some 23 years ago. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer\u2014the big lug went to Texas A&M on a football scholarship but flunked out halfway through his first year\u2014yet truer words have never been spoken. The film\u2019s own producer, Joel Silver, once summed up<\/a> the plot as \u201cboobs and bombs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, the copious amounts of T&A helped make Road House<\/em> a modest hit when it came out in April of 1989, and guaranteed its continued popularity on home video and as a staple of cable TV over the next several decades. So too would its reputation as one of, if not the ultimate, \u2018so-bad-it\u2019s-good\u2019 movie. In his two-and-a-half star review, Roger Ebert wrote, “Road House<\/em> exists right on the edge between the \u2018good-bad movie\u2019 and the merely bad.\u201d It was immediately canonized within that disreputable category when it was nominated for five Golden Raspberries (including Worst Picture) at the following year\u2019s Razzies, and has continued to be regarded as such by critics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But here\u2019s the thing: Road House<\/em> is a much better and far more interesting film than either its hormone-crazed or irony-poisoned boosters would have you believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What makes Road House<\/em> so interesting\u2014and the thing that makes smarmy viewers tie themselves into knots defending their enjoyment of it\u2014is its strangeness. The film, about a bar room bouncer (or \u201ccooler\u201d) named Dalton (Patrick Swayze) hired to clean up a rowdy nightclub called The Double Deuce in Jasper, Missouri, only to find himself engaged in a bloody war of attrition with corrupt town boss Brad Wesely (Ben Gazzara), sits at the nexus point of the American western and the Hong Kong chop-socky picture. But rather than load itself with obvious references to those genres, it plays things straight, and it’s that sincerity that throws viewers for a loop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is also true of the off-kilter world in which it\u2019s set, one where dive bar bouncers carry the mythic status of Old West gunfighters and where Saturday Morning Cartoon-style mayhem is an everyday occurrence. Road House<\/em> is not as overtly fantastical as, say, Walter Hill\u2019s similarly two-fisted odysseys The Warriors<\/em> or Streets of Fire<\/em>, but it\u2019s not far removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The strangeness of the plot and setting are made more noticeable by how aptly-named director Rowdy Herrington and screenwriter Hilary Henkin (credited alongside David Lee Henry, nee R. Lance Hill)\u00a0subvert viewer expectations. My dumb childhood buddy and Joel Silver may have focused on the boobs and bombs, but just as prevalent, if not moreso, is the emphasis on male beauty, homoeroticism, and Zen philosophy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Henkin, who at the time was known as \u201cthe girl who writes boy movies<\/a>\u201d, distinguishes the character of Dalton from every other action hero at the time (and since) by making him a cerebral New Agey-type: he holds a philosophy degree from NYU, he reads Jim Harrison novels on his downtime, he practices Tai Chi. He will absolutely break a guy\u2019s kneecap or rip his throat out when he has no choice, but most of the time he tries to avoid confrontation. His work motto is \u201cBe nice,\u201d and, as he later tells his doctor love interest (Kelly Lynch), \u201cNobody ever wins a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Anyone who\u2019s seen Henkin\u2019s next project, the gonzo neo-noir Romeo is Bleeding<\/em><\/a>, should recognize how distinctive her voice was, and how poorer we all are that her career fell off after the controversy surrounding her work on the political satire Wag the Dog<\/em><\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Herrington, for his part, turns the camera\u2019s lustful gaze upon the chiseled, feather-haired, and at one point, bare-assed beauty of Swayze, and then, for the film\u2019s second-half, the rugged, silver-maned allurement of Sam Elliot\u2019s Wade Garrett, the other greatest cooler in the land and Swayze\u2019s mentor\/big-brother figure (seriously, Elliot in Road House<\/em> may be the most handsome any man has ever been on film). The relationship between Dalton and Garrett is shockingly (for the genre) tender, with just enough of an erotic undercurrent to add an undeniably queer context to the proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The addition of these unexpectedly Eastern and feminine aspects make the brutality of the violence stand out even more, including Dalton\u2019s gruesome showdown with henchman Jimmy Reno (Marshall Teague, who gets to deliver the immortal line, \u201cI used to fuck guys like you in prison\u201d) or the climactic shotgun massacring of Wesley at the hands of pissed-off locals (this plot point was, according to Ebert, based on a true story and the catalyst for the entire movie). It\u2019s this dichotomy that makes Road House<\/em> such a singular work of action cinema, and the reason it has such a diverse fanbase\u2014a large percentage of which is made up of women and queer people, as evidenced by its Letterboxd reviews or the crowd at any rep screening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also what makes the prospect of the forthcoming remake<\/a> of the same name such a bad idea. It\u2019s not merely that Road House<\/em> is too unique to lend itself to a modern update, it\u2019s that centering the new version around the world of MMA fundamentally misunderstands the spirit of the original. Herrington\u2019s movie, with its over-the-top theatrics, comic book superheroics, and undercurrent of gayness has far more in common with professional wrestling than the boring bro culture of the UFC (nothing highlights this more than swapping out beloved wrestling icon Terry Funk for that douchebag Conor McGregor).Regardless of how the remake fairs, the OG Road House<\/em> will remain its own weird, beautiful thing, a favorite comfort watch amongst its cult of fans, as well as a perpetual discovery for younger audiences. The only thing that will change as time goes on is it won\u2019t be regarded as a classic of the good-bad variety, but appreciated for what it actually is: an outright good <\/em>movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Road House” <\/em>i<\/em>s streaming on Prime Video<\/a> and Max<\/a>, and also has a nice 4K<\/a> from Vinegar Syndrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/road-house2-1.jpg\")
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