Synopsis
The Double Deuce is the meanest, loudest and rowdiest bar south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Dalton has been hired to clean it up. He might not look like much, but the Ph.D.-educated bouncer proves he's more than capable – busting the heads of troublemakers and turning the roadhouse into a jumping hot spot. But Dalton's romance with the gorgeous Dr. Clay puts him on the bad side of cutthroat local big shot Brad Wesley.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Patrick SwayzeJames Dalton
- Kelly LynchDr. Elizabeth Clay
- Sam ElliottWade Garrett
- Ben GazzaraBrad Wesley
- Marshall R. TeagueJimmy
- Julie MichaelsDenise
- Red WestRed Webster
- Sunshine ParkerEmmet
- Kevin TigheFrank Tilghman
- John DoePat McGurn
Recommendations
- 80
Empire
An immensely enjoyable slice of romanticised fisticuffs, this is a Western in every respect except the stetsons and six guns. - 80
Time Out London
Swayze gives up 'Dirty Dancing' for dirty fighting in this violent, spectacular and immensely enjoyable study of Zen and the art of Barroom Bouncing...Mindless entertainment of the highest order. - 63
Chicago Sun-Times
Road House exists right on the edge between the "good-bad movie" and the merely bad. I hesitate to recommend it, because so much depends on the ironic vision of the viewer. This is not a good movie. But viewed in the right frame of mind, it is not a boring one, either. - 50
Chicago Tribune
Road House is startling because of the intensity of its violence and because of Swayze`s mindless posturing. A young star has sold himself to become a pinup boy. - 40
TV Guide Magazine
Director Rowdy Herrington lives up to his name: once he's seen to it that all the conventions of the western are in place, he presents an all-out brawl on the average of about every 12 minutes or so, and the battles quickly grow tiresome. Swayze is up to a part that requires him merely to show his muscles and dexterity, but Gazzara is trapped in his hopelessly evil caricature, leaving Sam Elliott (in a too-limited role) to provide the film's only real charm. - 40
Chicago Reader
The film gets campier by the minute. - 38
Boston Globe
Road House is the kind of action movie whose rigging is so blatant that there can be no air of heroism about it. Although Swayze and Sam Elliott, in the role of his mentor, have the decency to look sheepish most of the time, there's no end to the cynicism and merchandising on screen, especially in the sex scenes. [19 May 1989, p.45] - 30
Washington Post
An ugly commingling of old Westerns, Zen chic and kung fu movies...Full of gratuitous mayhem, head-bashing, gay-bashing and woman-bashing, Road House has a malicious, almost putrid tone.
