Here’s to you, ‘Road House’ - Entertainment, Movies - Air Force Times

Here’s to you, ‘Road House’

The blizzard of tributes to the late Patrick Swayze, who by all accounts was one of Hollywood’s good guys, understandably focuses on his big hits “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost,” with maybe a mention of “Red Dawn” and “Point Break” thrown in for variety.

But for millions of his fans, Swayze’s career will always be defined by a film released 20 years ago that ranks among the most awesomely cheesy B-movies ever made: “Road House.”

The story of a legendary bar bouncer with a philosophy degree was savaged by critics in its theatrical run, but in the years since has gained a broad and deep cult following.

In fact, the A.C. Nielsen company says it is the most-aired film on television, playing on TNT, TBS or other cable channels seemingly every other night. And every time I come across it while channel-surfing, I end up watching again.

But the edited version hardly does the film justice. Its full glory can be experienced only on pay cable or DVD, which give free rein to its wacky stew of “Kung Fu”-ish Eastern pacifism, old-style Western vigilantism and general knuckle-dragging surreality — the bloody fights, the smack-talk dialogue, the ample naked skin (including a full-backside and near-full-frontal shot of Swayze himself), and the many, many, many bad words.

“Road House” is powered by twin strokes of B-movie near-genius. The first, of course, is transplanting to a modern setting the classic Western plot of a lone, good-hearted gunslinger who rides into a town that is held tightly in the grip of evil, sneering villains and becomes the local citizenry’s last, best hope.

The second is director Rowdy Herrington’s decision to have everyone in the cast play it to the hilt, but completely straight — making the script by David Lee Henry and Hilary Henkin, 110 percent parody to begin with, seem all the nuttier.

The character names all evoke the Old West. Swayze, chiseled to an absurd degree — if he has a half-ounce of body fat in this flick, it’s a lot — is Dalton. Just Dalton; we never learn whether it’s his first or last name. His best pal and fellow bouncer is Wade Garrett (Sam Elliot at his gruff and grizzled best). His nemesis is Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara at his hammiest, wild-eyed best).

The leader of the house band at the titular dive bar is Cody (Jeff Healy). The owner of the local car parts shop is Red (Red West, who back in the day ran with Elvis’ Memphis Mafia). And Dalton’s love interest is Doc (Kelly Lynch at the peak of her hotness).

The film — best viewed after about four cheap beers and a couple of rotgut whiskey chasers — has Dalton riding into a rural Missouri town in a gleaming, late-model Mercedes after being hired by Tilghman (Kevin Tighe), owner of the Double Deuce (or “Double Douche,” as Garrett calls it), to clean up his place.

It’s a tall order. The DD is possibly the nastiest pit of a bar that has ever existed — a place where there’s “blood on the floor almost every night” and they “sweep up the eyeballs after closing.”

But if anyone can do it, it’s the low-key, slow-burning Dalton, whose code is “to be nice, until it’s time to not be nice” — a guy who carries his medical records with him because “it saves time” and declines anesthetic when getting his knife wounds stitched up because “pain don’t hurt.”

It’s not long before he’s staring down Wesley, a sadistic lunatic who lives in a riverside mansion with a ridiculously exotic big-game trophy room and uses his gang of goons, led by the snarling, feral Jimmy (Marshall Teague), to take a healthy bite out of every honest business owner in town.

The feud quickly turns personal when Dalton gets involved with Doc, with whom Wesley happens to be obsessed.

The final half-hour is deliriously loopy, as Dalton faces off mano-a-mano with Jimmy and then launches a one-man assault on Wesley’s stronghold.

Patrick Swayze may be gone, but for dedicated B-movie fans, the ubiquitous and deeply guilty pleasure that is “Road House” ensures that at any given hour of the day or night, Dalton will be bringing the pain on a TV screen somewhere — forever.

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The Tao of Dalton

Legendary bar bouncer Dalton, who rides into a small Missouri town in a gleaming Mercedes to clean out the riffraff led by the evil Brad Wesley, holds a degree in philosophy from New York University. His discipline: “Man’s search for faith ... that kind of s---.” His best pearls of wisdom:

10. “It’ll get worse before it gets better.”

9. “If you’re gonna have a pet, you should keep it on a leash.”

8. “You’re too stupid to have a good time.”

7. “There’s always barber college.”

6. “We’ve got entirely too many troublemakers here — too many 40-year-old adolescents, felons, power drinkers and trustees of modern chemistry.”

5. “My way, or the highway.”

4. “Take the biggest guy in the world, shatter his knee and he’ll drop like a stone.”

3. “Nobody ever wins a fight.”

2. “I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”

1. “Pain don’t hurt.”