Road House
It looks like this is the jewel in the iron crown of director Rowdy Herrington’s œuvre. I confess to just guessing here, as it is the only Herrington film I have seen. However, I’m willing to make a small cash bet on that, so confident am I.
It’s another contribution to the Hollywood genre of ‘Manliness Films’ that doesn’t really get enough recognition. Although there are some wonderful classic examples, they reached their greatest era in the 1980s, possibly a reflection of the Manly thinking themselves under siege by social changes in wider American society. ROAD HOUSE updates several tropes from Westerns for the 1980s, quite successfully. It’s also subject to a classically Leninist reading.
The town of Jasper, Missouri, is dominated by the comprador landlord Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara, who is the best thing about the film), who has come from the metropolis (Chicago) and rules over Jasper with an iron fist, extracting a surplus from small-business owners. One such example is the Double Deuce, a music bar owned by Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe). Tilghman is worn down by the rowdy atmosphere at the Double Deuce and travels to New York to find Dalton (Patrick Swayze), the best ‘cooler’ in the business. Dalton represents a revolutionary vanguard party, and organises the proletarian class to resist the capitalists. He emphasises class unity and conduct that is perfectly in line with Mao’s principles of guerrilla warfare, leading by example. But the road to revolution is a hard one, and there are casualties.
I have no doubt that the producers of the film would be horrified at this interpretation, but Art subconsciously makes for strange bedfellows at times.
In some respects, the film was a harbinger of an enthusiasm for globalisation as well. Dalton drives a Mercedes and is berated for it when he arrives in Jasper. He follows a Tai Chi discipline as part of a general mastery of martial arts. He reads Jim Harrison. He doesn’t dress particularly fashionably, but he is usually well turned out. Although presented as a former student of philosophy, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was a follower of Zen Buddhism. (His opponents are Patriots to a man.) This is surely the reason for the staying power of this film, its appeal across the political divide. Dalton foreshadows things like Iron John and Metrosexuality while acting out the Western Hero motif all at the same time. This is the Perfect/Last Man as we headed towards The End of History.
These contradictions in the film are characteristic of the confused politics of the United States, even back then. Yet at the same time there is no confusion about gender roles. Regardless of what the elites want, the United States as a society is devoted to the notion that Men are Men and Women are Women, without any liminality at the boundaries.
Beyond this, there is not a lot exceptional here. This was as much a ‘comic-book movie’ of its time as TERMINATOR or ALIENS or the exact contemporary Tim-Burton BATMAN. It is all about the fights. There’s a protagonist with a troubled past and an aging mentor. There’s a bit of romance. There is comic relief and pop philosophy. Perhaps surprisingly, the plot is not overly complicated. None of the actors is asked to work too hard (except physically). Without doubt it is well-made and well-choreographed. The fights are not so fast as to be hard to follow, a complaint I have about newer films of this sort. Its biggest flaw is that it is just that little bit too long but, to be honest, I wouldn’t know what to cut.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
It’s another contribution to the Hollywood genre of ‘Manliness Films’ that doesn’t really get enough recognition. Although there are some wonderful classic examples, they reached their greatest era in the 1980s, possibly a reflection of the Manly thinking themselves under siege by social changes in wider American society. ROAD HOUSE updates several tropes from Westerns for the 1980s, quite successfully. It’s also subject to a classically Leninist reading.
The town of Jasper, Missouri, is dominated by the comprador landlord Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara, who is the best thing about the film), who has come from the metropolis (Chicago) and rules over Jasper with an iron fist, extracting a surplus from small-business owners. One such example is the Double Deuce, a music bar owned by Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe). Tilghman is worn down by the rowdy atmosphere at the Double Deuce and travels to New York to find Dalton (Patrick Swayze), the best ‘cooler’ in the business. Dalton represents a revolutionary vanguard party, and organises the proletarian class to resist the capitalists. He emphasises class unity and conduct that is perfectly in line with Mao’s principles of guerrilla warfare, leading by example. But the road to revolution is a hard one, and there are casualties.
I have no doubt that the producers of the film would be horrified at this interpretation, but Art subconsciously makes for strange bedfellows at times.
In some respects, the film was a harbinger of an enthusiasm for globalisation as well. Dalton drives a Mercedes and is berated for it when he arrives in Jasper. He follows a Tai Chi discipline as part of a general mastery of martial arts. He reads Jim Harrison. He doesn’t dress particularly fashionably, but he is usually well turned out. Although presented as a former student of philosophy, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was a follower of Zen Buddhism. (His opponents are Patriots to a man.) This is surely the reason for the staying power of this film, its appeal across the political divide. Dalton foreshadows things like Iron John and Metrosexuality while acting out the Western Hero motif all at the same time. This is the Perfect/Last Man as we headed towards The End of History.
These contradictions in the film are characteristic of the confused politics of the United States, even back then. Yet at the same time there is no confusion about gender roles. Regardless of what the elites want, the United States as a society is devoted to the notion that Men are Men and Women are Women, without any liminality at the boundaries.
Beyond this, there is not a lot exceptional here. This was as much a ‘comic-book movie’ of its time as TERMINATOR or ALIENS or the exact contemporary Tim-Burton BATMAN. It is all about the fights. There’s a protagonist with a troubled past and an aging mentor. There’s a bit of romance. There is comic relief and pop philosophy. Perhaps surprisingly, the plot is not overly complicated. None of the actors is asked to work too hard (except physically). Without doubt it is well-made and well-choreographed. The fights are not so fast as to be hard to follow, a complaint I have about newer films of this sort. Its biggest flaw is that it is just that little bit too long but, to be honest, I wouldn’t know what to cut.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
Mini Review: Surely this is the jewel in the iron crown of director Rowdy Herrington’s œuvre. It’s also subject to a classically Leninist reading in my full review.
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