FAINT WAVES

Was this on your bingo card for me, an editorial on Road House (1989)? What a way to ring in the new year, right? Allow me to paint you a picture of how we wound up here. This could’ve easily been an aesthetic appreciation post, and I could have called it a day, but it wasn’t enough. I have a long history with the film Road House and I think I can safely say that it’s one of my favorite films of all time. Upon a recent re-watch, I’m happy to say that sentiment is largely intact. Sometimes, when you see a film as a kid, your memories of that film will be colored and you’ll remember it being better than it actually was. Time and age and experience can do that to us; we learn and grow and take in greater amounts of entertainment, our perceptions can change over time, and what we once found terrific and engrossing, we may not anymore. Thankfully, I did not have that experience with Road House. I first saw Road House as a young boy, somewhere between my pre-teen and adolescent stages, and it’s the sort of film that can have a lasting impression at that age (especially for a boy). This may surprise some readers, but it was my mom who actually brought the film to my attention. My mom was a Patrick Swayze fan (many women were because of Dirty Dancing in 1987 and would go on to be after Ghost in 1990) and Road House had come out right as she was exiting her teens. Between Swayze, her young age, her own job at a bar, and the fact that she was from Missouri (where the film is set)? It was the perfect storm and it made complete sense that the film would click with her. I have to credit my mom, because boy did it click with me too.

For the uninitiated: Road House is an action film from 1989, directed by Rowdy Herrington, with a screenplay by David Lee Henry and Hilary Henkin. Much like the director’s apt name, Road House is a rowdy piece of cinema that reflects the height of 80’s excess and a touch of what the 90’s will bring too. The decade is coming to an end, but it’s going out like a supernova, with all the flash and indulgence possible. See Cocktail, the tail end of Miami Vice, and the beginning of Baywatch. The entertainment ambiance is immaculate, and simultaneously, we’re cuing ourselves up for the 1990’s. That’s the space that Road House lives in; it’s got flair and style, but there’s a down-home grit and atmosphere that will bring to mind Renegade and Walker, Texas Ranger. The film stars Patrick Swayze, Kelly Lynch, Sam Elliott, and Jeff Healey, among others. Swayze plays James Dalton, or just “Dalton” if you prefer, a professional cooler (head bouncer, if you will). It’s established very quickly that Dalton is one of the best in his business, with a legend and reputation that precedes him, second only to the aging Wade Garrett (portrayed by the ever-consistent Sam Elliott). Dalton is sought out and recruited by a particularly desperate businessman attempting to get a road house (the Double Deuce) off the ground in Jasper, Missouri. His fledgling establishment has attracted every ruffian and ne’er-do-well the area can offer and when the titular road house is first shown, it’s little more than a debauched hellscape. Dalton blows into town and sets out to clean up the Double Deuce, before getting more than he bargained for with a comically corrupt proprietor of the town. Along the way, there are brawls, breasts, and a budding romance between Dalton and the attractive town doctor, Elizabeth, charmingly played by Kelly Lynch.

So, why now? What made me return to Road House in January 2026? The short answer is I’ve been watching Land Man, a Billy Bob Thornton and Demi Moore vehicle which is currently in its second season, a second season that prominently features Sam Elliott as it happens! With fond memories of his Road House role in the back of my mind, I was driven to revisit the film. I was not disappointed and I’m not sure if it could’ve come at a better time. Living in a time that continually threatens to drive me to madness, watching this film again was equal parts escapist dream, slice of levity, breath of fresh air, and raucous sleaze. I think that’s the brilliance of a movie like this. It is not any one thing, but many things fairly well put together, in a film that is one step above a B-Movie. In that respect, it’s an incredibly singular film, it subverts its own medium and simultaneously does it better than most any other film it could be compared to. Even for all its male gaze, the focus on Patrick Swayze’s incredible physique (including a lingering shot on his bare ass) and gentle romance with Kelly Lynch lend themselves beautifully to the female gaze. It’s a masculine picture but not harmfully so; I wouldn’t even venture to call it “macho”. For all its violence and destruction, it holds a grace and majesty that most testosterone-driven pictures simply don’t. Despite being deemed excessively violent and sleazy upon release by critics, the film’s narrative actually goes out of its way to condemn these things and by today’s standards, it isn’t especially gratuitous in either respect, frankly. I think for me, personally, Road House proved an important film in my formative years. That might seem silly. Road House, an important film? Hear me out.

I never had any long-term male role models. There were men who tried (my uncle among them), but my dad abandoned me at an early age, and I never had any brothers. My mom did what she could, and to be fair, probably presented more balance than most mothers are capable of. That said, a lot of what I understood about being a male would come from fiction, for better or for worse. I got a lot out of books like The Outsiders, Of Mice And Men, and The Great Gatsby when I had to read them in school. Simultaneously, I was drawn to films like Star Wars, Rocky, Karate Kid, Footloose, The Breakfast Club, Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, Cocktail, Dead Poets Society, Terminator 2, The Shawshank Redemption, Good Will Hunting, and The Matrix, among others. A lot of those are classics, sure, but these pieces of media also feature incredible male characters at various ages and stages of life, exploring themes and ideas that are core to the male experience. The same can be said of Road House; themes of transcendence, stoicism, mercy, brotherhood, and community are strong in Road House. I think a lot of those concepts are important for boys and I think they’re executed surprisingly well in Road House, even if they are merely surface level at times. This is the sort of film your cool older brother might show you, even though you’re probably too young for all the blood and breasts you’re about to see. I never had that brother, but I did have my mom, and I’m glad she had the good grace to show me the film. For a movie that’s merely a cult classic and considered “so-bad-it’s-good”, I think there’s more than meets the eye and takeaways like the ones I had growing up, they’re easy to see and hard to refute. It’s wildly entertaining, action-packed, surprisingly tight in its writing (cheesy as that writing may be), and wonderfully atmospheric. Despite all that violence that critics hated so much, it’s a place you want to stay, and you want to stick with the characters you’re shown. I know I did; they showed me a lot.

In closing, there’s so much I could say about this film; we could be here all day. I could write about how big of a missed opportunity it was that Road House never became a proper franchise, with a prequel featuring Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliott reprising their roles, and then a proper sequel to the first film with Swayze to round out a trilogy. I could speak on the truly awesome soundtrack and score of the film, which is a character in and of itself (almost literally thanks to Jeff Healey’s presence and contributions). I could talk about the tremendous costuming, set design, stunts, and pyrotechnics of the movie. I could bring up the direct-to-video sequel from 2006 that I haven’t seen (and probably won’t), or if I wanted to be more relevant, I could mention the 2024 reboot starring Jake Gyllenhaal and its upcoming sequel, but I haven’t seen Road House (2024) either, and any opinion I’d have would be vague at best (though I sincerely wish Conor McGregor and Post Malone were not in the film). I could also write about the strange legal debacle going on right now that might result in us not only getting Gyllenhaal’s Road House 2, but a completely unrelated sequel to the original 1989 film as well (who knows what will happen with that, if anything). I’m not going to talk about any of these things I’ve mentioned; I’m merely going to say that I love this film and I’m glad it exists.

I’ve long joked that Road House is the “perfect” film. In some respects, depending on what you’re looking for, it just might be.

Thanks for reading.

“Pain don’t hurt.”