The Genius That Is Road House (1989)

Sometimes, decades are marked by all-defining films that not only encapsulate every virtue and vice, but even challenge how we perceive them at all. Much can be said of the eighties, whose culture and events still hang around with us for good and for ill 35-odd years on. And for that whole period, one can point to a single film that concentrated so much mullets, pop lyrics thought up on the spot, and excess that it transcends the very constraints of mere cinema. Who better to bring us this glorious mana from heaven than the second sexiest man ever (before, of course Wallace Shawn...alright, Chris Farley)—Patrick Swayze himself. The fundamental question posed by our magnum opus for today, Road House, just so happens to be—how much Swayze can you handle?

From the beginning, Road House introduced me to whole new interpretations of reality itself. Swayze here plays Dalton, who happens to be a bouncer—not just any bouncer, but apparently the greatest bouncer in the world, so awe-inspiring that bar owners have to negotiate expensive contracts as if they’re handling massive drug deals. Not only does Dalton attract businessmen who have to grovel merely to attract his attention, but his name has spread even to the small one-horse towns he ends up working in. 

Truly, this opened my eyes to how glory can be found where you seek it. How can one doubt that grown men faint as Dalton ejects whisky-sloshed dudes overrating their own physiques, all at 1am? How can you not marvel at the artistry in which he would recover weaponized high heels, or retrieve 21-year olds who confused a toilet with a handsink? The movie makes it very clear that all this makes a Dalton a god among men—and, tearfully, I had to admit that bouncing was indeed next to godliness as our tale proceeds. 

And it came to pass in the Book of Saturday Nights that the Swayze did decree thyself to get outside--and all saw that it was good. 

You see, Dalton ends up in his new employment in some Missouri town, at the Double Deuce Bar. What we have here is a perfect metaphor of the divinity of civilization bringing order to chaos, represented by Swayze and his deific mullet. We are presented with a bar so rowdy that within two minutes of entry, destructive chaos ensues over a somewhat opaque argument over the formalities of touching a pair of breasts. But lo, as The Swayze descends, angels singing in his wake, with a system of uniforms and basic politeness does he restore order to the Double Deuce, so that there may be proper channels for assorted gratuitous fondling. 

We are not yet done illustrating with how such an ubermensch changes lives by his mere presence. For soon, we are greeted with the sight of Swayze’s bare ass as he moves around in the morning—an ass that, quite literally, seems to inspire brief orgasms upon those that stare upon it. And how could they not? Is it not prophesized that, from dancing most dirty, will emerge an ass beyond the ken of mere mortality?

If only this man could get shirtless everywhere all at once, the world would be a wiser place.

Still, the film remains unfinished with displaying how Dalton brings whole new levels to the profession of bouncerdom. He even practices tai chi in the daw, or possibly practicing as being a Madonna backup dancer. Either way, his sight seems to inspire rather enamoured joy in Dalton’s hillbilly landlord, proving that such raw shirtless awesomeness is the key to eradicating pretences of heteronormativity. 

Punctuating this of course is dialogue that at first glance may feel like it was written by a hermit disconnected from rationality, but that alone demonstrates that we are talking about raw poetry designed to expand your mind like the wisest of zen koans. “Pain don’t hurt”—one could meditate on this for hours alone. Nor “You’re too stupid to have a good time!” Perhaps even the song lyrics that punctuate these proceedings, including ones that, I think, are about having sex in outhouses. Between that and philosophy to draw the envy of Laozi, what more could anyone want? 

Well, we also have the discovery of Dalton’s soulmate, the young Dr. Elizabeth (Kelly Lynch). We even have Dalton’s mentor in the mystical arts of bouncing, Wade (Sam Elliot) comment profoundly on both her intelligence and her backside—for truly, there cannot exist a higher limit for the human condition here than a well-sculpted butt. Either way, we are greeted by one of the most incredible and emotional lovemaking scenes in cinema, where it transpires that Dalton needs not even to remove any undergarment before he begins his work. What better illustration of the ‘it’s all about the motion of the ocean’ principle could one get? 

Before long, we are suddenly interrupted by our main plot—that being the conflict between Dalton and local suzerain Brad (Ben Gazarra), who decides to declare war on our hero because he got his nephew fired, or another reason I forget while digesting the brain-melting commentaries on the human condition about that. It transpires that a key part of bouncerdom is triumphing over vast groups of enemies in martial arts battles, and soon we escalate to Brad destroying whole buildings with monster trucks because…of something to do with a store owner and the FBI, I think. Either way, this happens with such intensity that one forgets that this all started with improving the market value of a bar—such is the tightly woven script here that I would not have even blinked had tanks and giant robots suddenly joined the mixed. 

Between this and the kung fu deathmatch preceding it, I marvel at the versatility of a film that started earlier with proper customer service procedure training. Truly these are matches in heaven.

It soon becomes necessary, upon the death of his mentor introduced not too long before, that Swayze must complete his ascension to Olympus by destroying his foes, and soon invades Brad’s compounds with explosions and the ninja teleportation that all bouncers must master in the temples of Tibet. Dozens of armed foes fall before his shirtless might, including one redneck too lazy to move away from a falling taxidermied bear. And lo, does our epic confrontation with Brad commence, with our villain literally promising to mount Dalton’s ass on the wall. Such is the verisimilitude of the writing here that I truly believed with every fibre of my soul that he truly would slice off Swayze’s butt cheeks, stuff them, and place them on a trophy rack!

But our day is saved, for it seems that Swayze has imparted his powers of teleportation to several other characters he has met—there being no stronger evidence that he is a divine being inspiring the abilities of mankind around him. Brad is soon defeated by his suddenly appearing friends, who presumably will inform the police that he committed suicide with five shotguns at once, and we end on one wonderful song sequence from the Double Deuce; that being of a guitarist who was obviously just the keyboardist, playing like he’s trying to pick fleas out of the strings. 

 

So much can be unpacked from Road House that unmitigated tomes could be written of its philosophies. Be it the transcendent power of behinds, or bouncerdom, or perhaps just the vigor and excess of a decade that culminated with this triumph and glory. Sure the eighties may have been a transformative time for much of the world, but none of that compares to this single film. There was even a remake on Amazon recently that, well, nobody in the world seems to care about, for what is Road House without Patrick Swayze’s Killer Ninja Death Grip?

But seriously, let's face it--Jake Gyllenhaal can’t match that.