I am Sheamus - Very Personal Development

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Summary: Patrick Swayze kicks all kinds of ass as a bouncer at a seedy road-side bar.
Notable Cast: Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara, Kelly Lynch, Jeff Healey
Director: Rowdy Herrington
Tagline(s): “The dancing’s over. Now it gets dirty.” / “Dalton lives like a loner, fights like a professional. And loves like there’s no tomorrow.” / “Dalton’s the best bouncer in the business. His nights are filled with fast action, hot music and beautiful women. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.”

How Important Is This Movie In The Wide, Wide World Of Action? It’s arguably the greatest action movie ever made. Hell, it’s arguably the greatest movie ever made, period.

Swayze plays Dalton, a professional cooler (basically, a bouncer who uses his mouth before his fists, which is rare) with a bit of a dodgy past, i.e., he killed some geezer. That’s all behind him now, though, and his reputation is such that he commands serious income to run the door teams at the worst of venues. Dalton is no schmuck, either - he’s got a degree in philosophy, practices Tai Chi, does his own surgical stitch-work whilst carrying his medical records everywhere (”It saves time.”) and makes a shed-load of money doing it. Too much, really, as he’s lured to the Double Deuce, a seedy slum of a bar in Jasper, Missouri, by the promise of $5,000 up-front, $500 a night and all medical expenses paid.

This is 1989 - that’s a monstrous amount of money even today. In the movie Dalton appears to work every night of the week. So that’s $3,500 for seven days work, plus his medical package (he gets stabbed a lot.) I mean, okay, so he’s pretty good at what he does, and all that, but how much money would a bar need to take to make that investment pay off? Not to mention all the other staff expenses, and you totally know all the $10/hour bouncers are so going on strike when they find out what Dalton is picking up. Even if he’s only in-house for a few months sorting the problems out, the venue will be bankrupt by the time he’s done.

And get this - Dalton also cons an old farmer into letting him stay in his unbelievable outhouse for $100 a month. Man, he must be raking it in. And do you think he pays taxes? Well, do you?

And he isn’t even the best in the business. That’s Wade Garrett (Sam Elliott), Dalton’s mentor and kind of like a Texan Obi-Wan Kenobi. But tougher. (Although he has a dodgy knee.)

Naturally, Wade taught Dalton everything he knows. He’s also one of the all-time great action movie characters. Wade Garrett, my friends, is a fucking legend.

You wish you were ten per cent as cool as Wade Garrett. Yes, you do.

Dalton’s promise that it’s “my way, or the highway” (which may well have been the first time those words were ever spoken, certainly by somebody with a mullet) works, at least at first. The Double Deuce clientèle improves considerably, which is critical, as Dalton’s taking ‘em for $500/night, remember. And he has the nerve to fire the bartender for skimming, when the guy was probably only pocketing a few bucks a shift.

Enter Brad Wesley (the excellent Ben Gazzara). Wesley claims to be a businessman, but really is a bit like the bad guy who runs the town in every Western ever made. Think Gene Hackman in The Quick And The Dead and you’re halfway there. Wesley seems to make most of his money by taxing the hard-working townsfolk of Jasper.

Wesley and Dalton quickly become enemies, particularly when Dalton starts to date Clay (Kelly Lynch), aka ‘The Doc’, who for some unfathomable reason is Wesley’s ex-girlfriend. (Ben Gazzara is nearly 30 years older than Kelly Lynch. And Wesley is just so mean, too. I really can’t see what the attraction was. Money? It’s always money.) And Wesley sure knows how to pick ‘em, because Denise, his current girlfriend, likes Dalton too.

But she strikes me as somebody who pretty much likes anything (even that).

And that bartender that Dalton sacked? He’s only Wesley’s flippin’ nephew.

Brad’s used to getting his way, and when Dalton turns down his offer of employment, we get to meet Jimmy (the wonderfully-named Marshall R. Teague), Wesley’s henchman numero uno. Jimmy is one of the strangest movie characters ever created. He dresses like the cowboy member of the Village People, quite clearly hates women (given how he treats Denise, who he is meant to be minding but actually prefers dragging around. Then again, Wesley himself beats her as well, but let’s face it, she must have done something wrong and probably had it coming), says things like, “I used to fuck guys like you in prison” (to Dalton), and for all intents and purposes is blatantly homosexual. And not in the good modern way - he’s gay. Gay, gay, gay. In every conceivable sense.

But he’s a badass gay. Jimmy easily handles all of Dalton’s men (who, to be fair, could use a little treadmill time) and is more than a match for Wade, too. Dalton and Jimmy are about to square up to each other when Wesley stops the fight.

Wade’s had enough - he wants Dalton to leave town. Dalton wants to stay, and the two of them come this close to a fight, with Dalton going as far as throwing a punch, which Wade easily intercepts.

“We don’t want to do this,” Wade says, which was a real shame as that onscreen battle would easily have rivalled Yoda vs Palpatine in Revenge Of The Sith.

Wade leaves. Wesley, meantime, decides to blow up Dalton’s farmhouse. Or rather, Jimmy does, but it’s pretty likely he was too worried about looking completely fucking bent in his denim to have acted on his own. Dalton rescues the old farmer (probably taking back his $100 in the process as a saver’s fee), and then has his showdown with Jimmy.

Dalton wins, killing Jimmy in the process by ripping out his throat with his bare frickin’ hands, an event which the Doc witnesses. Naturally, she’s against that kind of thing, and tells Dalton that he and Brad are one and the same. (Which must have been shocking news, as Wesley has quite the receding hairline.)

After finding Jimmy dead, Wesley gets seriously pissed. He phones Dalton and tells him that he is going to kill either Wade or the Doc in retaliation, and the decision is to be made by coin toss. Dalton can’t see the results, and mean-old Wesley sure ain’t going to tell him. Panicked, Dalton rushes to the hospital, but the Doc, still sickened by Dalton’s murder of Jimmy, refuses his protection.

Dalton decides that Wade was right, and goes to find him so they can leave town. But Wade is dead, murdered by Wesley (”It was tails.”)

Dalton breaks into Wesley’s home, easily besting his (hilariously inept) men, before taking on Brad himself. Physically, Wesley is no match, but he evens things out a bit by using a gun. Dalton, wounded, looks finished as Wesley goes to shoot him again. But before you can say “judo chop”, Dalton Tai Chis the gun out of Wesley’s hand and moves in for the kill, using his dreaded claw.

Then has second-thoughts and decides he’s had enough violence for that day, and spares Brad.

Big mistake. Dalton, distracted by the arrival of the Doc (women!), turns his back on Wesley, who picks up his gun and is about to finish the Swayze off when… BANG! Pretty much everybody in the town that Wesley has exploited over the years show up and shoot him dead.

The police arrive, but that doesn’t matter. This is 1989, folks - little things like forensic evidence, CCTV and key witnesses were yet to be invented. Oh, and then everybody laughs when a polar bear falls on a fat man, bravely managing to put the last few hours mindless violence and numerous, bloody deaths behind them.

Was This Film Made In The 1980s? This film was the 1980s. Look, there are only four movies in the history of the world that really matter: Predator, Aliens, Die Hard and Road House. That’s how magnificent this flick is. Road House is like everything that was great about the 1980s - mullet haircuts, fighting, excessive nudity, guns, monster trucks and polar bears - crammed into one frickin’ movie!

Does The Music Rule? Hell yeah. Jeff Healey, of The Jeff Healey Band fame, does not only sing most of the slammin’ tunes in the film but he stars in it, too. Playing a blind blues rock guitarist, i.e., himself. (Healey sadly passed away on March 2, 2008.) George Strait’s All My Exes Live In Texas pops up at one point. And Swayze sings on the OST. But that’s pretty much a given.

Does Swayze Have Sex With A Woman? He sure does, although the jury’s out on Kelly Lynch, who is not only boss-eyed but strikingly butch most of the time. And then she went on to play a ‘man’ called Ivan in The L-Word, so I’m not sure it really counts. Swayze, meantime, takes every opportunity he can to get his shirt off and show us his magnificent buttocks. To his credit, he’s in great shape in this film. Must be all that Tai Chi.

Does He Keep It Real With Dudes? Hell yeah. We’ll get to his relationship with Wade Garrett in a bit, but throughout the film Dalton is very popular with the men in the town. With the exception of Wesley and his henchmen, every man in the film likes Dalton. A lot. Even Jimmy clearly likes him too - in that way. And you can probably argue the same case for Wesley and the old farmer, as well. And everyone else.

Was There A Training Montage? Kind of. Dalton converts his $100/month outhouse into a rudimentary gym, with lots of things he can punch, kick and climb. There’s no kick-ass music in this scene, though (unfortunately).

Does Wade Garrett Pass On Any Words Of Wisdom? All the time. From his observation that “that gal’s got entirely too many brains to have an ass like that” about the Doc, to letting us know that “I’ll get all the sleep I need when I’m dead”, Garrett is packing more bite-size chunks of truth than anybody this side of Tyler Durden. And then - get this - he calls The Double Deuce The Double Douche. Ha!

Plus he refers to Dalton as “Amigo’, too, which we really like.

No Moustaches? This is an oddly moustache-free movie, particularly for the 1980s. Okay, it’s right at the tail-end, but still, we only counted one proper moustache, and that was Wesley’s nephew (and he doesn’t really count for anything). Everybody is clean-shaven, and that includes their oiled chests. All except Garrett, naturally, who has a grey beard.

Who Cheats? Jimmy, who at first has the upper hand but is then overpowered by Dalton, lives up to the 80s stereotype and pulls out a gun. After boasting of his physical mastery the entire movie, he then announces that he’s going to finish Dalton off the “old-fashioned way”. He might have meant by fucking him, but he was holding a gun at the time so we’ll go with that. Later, Wesley pretty much does the same thing. Let’s face it - nobody is a match for Dalton in this movie. Or in any movie, for that matter.

Trailer:

Classic Clip:

Notable Quotes: Christ, so, so many total gems. I’m tempted just to paste in the entire script.

The Entire Cast (to Dalton): I thought you’d be bigger.

Wade Garrett: This place has a sign hangin’ over the urinal that says, “Don’t eat the big white mint”.

Dalton: People who really want to have a good time won’t come to a slaughterhouse. And we’ve got entirely too many troublemakers here. Too many 40-year-old adolescents, felons, power drinkers and trustees of modern chemistry.

Dalton: If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won’t walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can’t walk him, one of the others will help you, and you’ll both be nice. I want you to remember that it’s a job. It’s nothing personal.

Dalton: I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.

Steve: Being called a cocksucker isn’t personal?
Dalton: No. It’s two nouns combined to elicit a prescribed response.
Steve: What if somebody calls my mama a whore?
Dalton: Is she?

Dalton: Take the biggest guy in the world, shatter his knee and he’ll drop like a stone.

Morgan: I heard you had balls big enough to come in a dump truck, but so far you ain’t shown me shit.
Dalton: Opinions vary.

Morgan: What am I supposed to do?
Dalton: There’s always barber college.

Doc: How’s a guy like you end up a bouncer?
Dalton: Just lucky I guess.

Doc: Do you ever win a fight?
Dalton: Nobody ever wins a fight.

Dalton: Pain don’t hurt.

Red Webster: I got married to an ugly woman. Don’t ever do that. It just takes the energy right out of you. She left me, though. Found somebody even uglier than she was. That’s life. Who can explain it?

Dalton: All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it’s absolutely necessary. And three, be nice.

Dalton: It’s my way, or the highway.

Dalton: Sorry, we’re closed.
Ketchum: Then what are all these people doing here?
Dalton: Drinking and having a good time.
Ketchum: That’s why we’re here.
Dalton: You’re too stupid to have a good time!

Jimmy: I used to fuck guys like you in prison.

Jimmy: Prepare to die.
Dalton: You are such an asshole.

Road House is one of the best films ever made. I mean it. In any technical sense it’s complete trash. Any film student worth his salt would pull the movie apart, frame-by-frame, until all that was left was Jimmy’s denim waistcoat. But somehow, despite all this, the film really, really works. It’s post-pub entertainment of the highest calibre.

If you enjoyed this review, and desperately want to see Road House again, or for the first time, you can buy it on Amazon.

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• Today You Die (2005). A Review.