Road House (1989)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

After seeing this movie promoted and satirized for over 20 years I thought it was finally time I watched it (really had no desire to ever see this when I was young, and now I know why). This has to be one of the dumbest, most insanely ridiculous movies ever made. Almost every scene and the entire plot was so laughably fake and ridiculous, it's amazing to me anyone in this film was ever able to land another acting, directing, or writing job after this (not sure about the latter two)! I mean come on, the daily "bar fights" where they're destroying half the bar doing $10,000-30,000 worth of damgae and everyone sits by like this happens every night. It immediately brought to mind the flashback scene in Airplane!, where "a fight broke out almost every night"....it was that ridiculously staged and directed. Give me a break. I don't care what "subplot" they had going on, if that kind of damage was done to a bar every night, they coudln't stay in business more than 2 days, even if they were being run by the mob! They'd have to rebuild the place, order tens of thousands of dollars of new furniture and liquor every day. What a joke!!! Then the cliched and hackneyed scene, one after the other, where the story just centers around Patrick Swayze's chest and a bunch of 3rd-rate actors giving each other "evil eye"! I love how everyone from big fat guys, to the 50-60 year old owners and crooked townspeople, apparently know Ju Jit Su can fight off entire crowds Bruce Lee stytle....LOFL!!! I've seen a lot of bad 80's movies in my day (and many that have held up extremely well over the years...this is definitely not one of them, as it was never worth even filming to begin with)! I laughed so hard at almost every line of dialogue and laughable scene that took itself so seriously. If you gave this a good review, you must have doo-doo for brains. If you own this movie, you must be mentally challenged and should really take an IQ test. Haahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Road House is an enjoyable and easy to understand film. Swayze does a great job as the calm and collected bouncer. The story and film is interesting enough and we always knew there would be a showdown between Dalton and Wesley. Decent, entertaining and perfect for relaxing. Some movies are enjoyable for the movie experience and nothing move. Its fun to sit back and watch fights and great showdowns.8/10

This really is one of those guilty pleasures - a inane movie, but possessed of so many elements for guys to enjoy, mainly regular bouts of ass-kicking, that a guy has to watch it about once a year to get his fix of adrenaline and a picture of how the world should work. The movie has its own rules and an internal structure mostly explained by the character of Dalton (Swayze), a supervisor of bouncers termed a Cooler. When certain entertainment establishments become too lowbrow and rowdy on a nightly basis, someone like Dalton is hired on to show all the patrons how to behave in a civilized manner. He has a degree in philosophy to help facilitate his instruction, plus some martial arts disciplines. In this world of bouncers, club owners, and alcohol dispensers, Dalton has a mighty rep - they've all heard of him,

Patrick Swayze, the man whose film career seems to be rather sparse if not interesting, stars in this classic action film of the late '80s, made at a time, we must remember, when most genre cinema was clichéd and derivative. The simple-in-the-extreme plot of ROAD HOUSE offers no new surprises and is merely a modern updating of the western, with added mullets, but it seems fresh and stylish on every viewing. Swayze is a likable hero and a hit with boring love interest Kelly Lynch, but he also studies philosophy and kicks backside with martial arts too. His lakeside fight with Marshall Teague is the stuff of legend and a wonderful showdown between the two tough men.There's a varied supporting cast including slimy, weaselly Ben Gazzara as the rich property owner who gets shotgunned to death, and Sam Elliott in a cool role as Swayze's old-time buddy. But the focus is on action, and we get tons of lengthy and gruelling knife-fights and beat-em-up-battles which tend to stress the realism. The tension in the Double Deuce scenes is spot on. Not just a good film, a very good one with plenty on offer to appetise those who follow fight flicks.