Friday, January 17, 2014

Movie review - "Roadhouse" (1989) **

This has become a camp classic, with its high concept (an action film centering around a bouncer), late 80s fashion (mullets, high pants), 80s action tropes (women who strip for no good reason, smoking, best friends who die at the end of Act Two), Patrick Swayze in the lead role and delirious leaps of logic (where are the police)?

But you know something? The idea of updating the Western to nightclubs is a solid one - there is something very satisfactory about a bouncer coming in to town to clean things up. The scriptwriter (s?) make a mistake by not having Swayze either own the bar himself or have more a of connection with the owner - he's just this random guy (played by Kevin Tighe, an actor who normally plays villains). But Kelly Lynch is very beautiful and Sam Elliott and Ben Gazzara provide entertainingly campy support as chief friend and foe respectively. And I enjoyed the novelty of Jeff Healey popping up in quite a large role as the local singer at the bar and Swayze does great in the fight scenes.

This should have been better - the flaws in the script could have easily been fixed (eg cover the complete absence of police by establishing that they've been bought off by Gazzara, giving Swayze more of a stake in the business, varying the good townsfolk so that they're not all old white men who look like they'd be members of the Ku Klux Klan). But they haven't been so the movie is full of hilarious moments. Its silly, stupid and good fun.

NB A melancholy note - Swayze is in terrific shape but he's sucking down a cigarette almost every scene. You should have given them up, Swayze!

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