Road House (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)
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Actor: Ben Gazarra, Keith David, Kelly Lynch, Patrick Swayze, Sam ElliottBrand: Sony
Blu-ray: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Korean (Subtitled); Cantonese (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); French (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Multiple Formats
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 114 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2009-06-02
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Blu-ray Reviews of Road House (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)
Blu-ray Review: Great action flick, but worth owning on Blu-ray?
Summary: 3 Stars
I first saw this one in the theatre, and several times a year or so after that when it reached the premium cable channels (e.g. HBO, Cinemax, etc.). Since several of the reviews don't qualify as actual reviews but more critiques of the packaging (legitimate complaints, folks, but still - that's not a review), let me offer up a brief synopsis.
Patrick Swayze stars in this one as a professional bouncer who has handled security at many bars and roadhouses (and the seedier, the better, it seems, certainly for the story's purposes) around the country. He arrives at this particular dive in a small town in Missouri, where the house band is played quite wonderfully by the Jeff Healey Band (the soundtrack includes the hits from the JHB's debut album, and their appearance in this film no doubt boosted their popularity at the time on pop and classic rock radio); they are forced to play behind chainlink fence due to the rowdiness of the regulars - fights ensue every night that end in many broken chairs, tables and bodies. (Indeed, not long after the Swayze character's arrival, there's a scene in which the bar's owner jokes "Well, it was a good night - nobody died!") Swayze's character is a very cool customer with a black belt in karate and a very clean lifestyle - including, as in one connecting scene, daily morning tai chi practice - as well as a no-B.S.-tolerated style of management. As he informs the bar's staff at one meeting: "It's my way...or the highway." (Compelling dialogue!)
Very soon, of course, he begins cleaning house quite effectively; staff caught indulging in the bar's stock-in-trade during work hours are summarily fired, as are a bartender and a sexy waitress caught making the beast with two backs in a storage room. The town itself is home to a very wealthy, very corrupt man played by Ben Gazzari who does as he pleases and who, it seems, owns the roadhouse. Several local businessmen and neighbours to Gazzari's character are often harassed and persecuted by him, yet they feel themselves powerless to do anything. Swayze's character seeks to rally the "troops" by standing up to Gazzari's character; as he succeeds in turning the roadhouse into a respectable and more peaceable watering hole, he turns his attention to the town...with rather more mixed results, and a fairly predictable ending (our hero wins, but for those of you who haven't seen this movie, I won't spoil the plot - rent this movie first and watch it, then, if you like it enough to watch it repeatedly, give your money to Amazon or any other retailer you feel deserves your hard-earned pay).
Subplots include Swayze's romance with a local and very attractive blonde physician (whose first encounter with him is an appointment sewing up an injury from a fight early in the film, in which Swayze's character grunts manfully as she stitches him up and offers up some sage wisdom: "Pain don't hurt") and the arrival of a long-time buddy and fellow bouncer, played by Sam Elliott, who does what he can to help Swayze's character, but doesn't survive the film, since the hero always has to have a buddy who'll take the fall for him.
So...is it worth owning on Blu-ray? If action flicks are your thing, absolutely. For the more serious movie buff, probably not. The ending is fairly satisfying, and I particularly dug the Jeff Healey Band doing Dylan's "When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky" over the end credits (a good late-period Dylan song covered to perfection), but otherwise, this is pretty pedestrian stuff. You pretty much know what's going to happen from the outset.
Description of Road House (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)
Patrick Swayze stars in this sexy, "violent tough-guy thriller" (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) from the producer of Die Hard and The Matrix. Co-starring Ben Gazzara (The Thomas Crown Affair), Kelly Lynch (Charlie's Angels) and Sam Elliott (We Were Soldiers), Road House delivers no-holds-barred action that pushes the envelope for high-octane thrills! Swayze is Dalton, a legendary bouncer who comes to Jasper, Missouri, for a special purpose: to restore order at the notorious Double Deuce bar. In one spectacular fight after another, Dalton rids the bar of thugs and henchmen. But when he runs afoul of a ruthless crime boss (Gazzara) who controls the town, the stage is set for a blistering showdown that'll leave only one man standing!One of those movies that helped usher out the era of action films that had plots that made any sense (and also helped reverse the direction of Patrick Swayze's career arc), Road House concerns a handsome, existential bouncer in a rinky-dink honky-tonk who owns both a degree in philosophy and a Mercedes. And that's perhaps the most believable aspect of the whole movie. Swayze stars as Dalton, "the best bouncer in the business," who runs afoul of Wesley (Ben Gazzara), the meanest SOB round these parts, by taking up with his former girlfriend, Doc (Kelly Lynch)--the only woman in town with an IQ approaching double digits, even if she had unfathomably hooked up with such a lowlife. Swayze had complained about being typecast as beefcake when this was made, but that didn't stop him from revealing as much skin as possible--even guys like him, as revealed in a luridly seedy scene in which one of Wesley's goons tells Dalton that he reminds him of the kind of boyfriend he had in prison (albeit in much saltier terms). It's so insulting to its audience that it's nice to be able to turn the tables and laugh at the filmmakers. --David Kronke
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