Road House

Directed by Rowdy Herrington, Road House follows Patrick Swayze’s James Dalton as he agrees to become the head bouncer for a rough-and-tumble bar in Missouri – with complications ensuing after Dalton begins butting heads with a local businessman (Ben Gazzara’s Brad Wesley). Filmmaker Herrington, armed with a script by David Lee Henry and Hilary Henkin, delivers an entertaining, sporadically engrossing piece of work that’s been suffused with a whole raft of appealing elements and attributes, as Herrington does a terrific job of infusing the proceedings with a fairly irresistible down-south atmosphere and performances of a distinctly compelling nature – with, in terms of the latter, Swayze’s magnetic turn matched by such personable periphery players as Sam Elliott, Kevin Tighe, and Kelly Lynch. (Gazzara’s deliciously smug and smarmy work as the movie’s less-than-subtle villain does remain an ongoing highlight, to be sure.) And while the picture’s 114 minute running time results in a few palpable lulls within the far-from-streamlined midsection, Road House, which boasts a handful of electrifying action sequences (eg Dalton’s throat-ripping encounter with Wesley’s top goon), builds towards an exciting, satisfying third act that ensures the movie concludes on a thoroughly positive note – with the end result a solid 1980s endeavor that receives plenty of mileage out of Swayze’s first-class efforts.

*** out of ****