ROAD HOUSE (1989) is closer to like PREDATOR (1987) which is another incredibly stupid but well-made mid-budget 80's movie than it is to like, a MST3k incompetent schlock-fest that can only be enjoyed ironically. The movie works for the reasons the filmmakers were trying to make it work.
Similarly, Patrick Swayze, a good actor, is good in it. His performance is frequently funny, on purpose, because he understands he is in a funny movie that is trying to be funny.
Like they establish how evil the main bad guy is by having LITERALLY A MONSTER TRUCK break through a glass wall and crush a bunch of his rival's cars and people are like "wow i wonder if this movie wants me to take it totally seriously or not" bsky.app/profile/butp...
A polar bear taxidermy statue lands on a B tier goon, incapacitating him for the final fight.
When asked what happened to the main bad guy by authorities once shit goes down, the goon states "A polar bear fell on me."
Road House is CINEMA.
yes exactly: there's a lot of incredible, earnest deadpans of completely insane lines, which is exactly the right way to play his character bsky.app/profile/itst...
i agree with all this with the caveat that the way swayze gets comedy out of roadhouse is to play it completely earnest.
“you’re too stupid to have a good time” is fucking hilarious because swayze absolutely fucking means it.
that man IS too stupid to have a good time, and that OFFENDS dalton.
Actually struggling with this while watching "Jack Reacher" on Amazon.
Is this a good show, or a bad show that's at least entertaining? Because so many of the line readings are so stiff or ... staged.
I feel like Reacher almost approaches being aware that it’s dumb and should be dumb but loves how serious it thinks it’s being that it never gets there
Reacher is a very 80's coded series that is both a bad show that is entertaining, and a good show with ineffectual humor at times. The point seems to be doing dumb action stuff and watching heroes survive the stupidity of the things they do because it's fun to watch.
I think this confusion stems from some people watching movies like they're reading a book and rating the movie based on the dialogue more than the shit they are beholding with their god damn eyes.
Films directed by ex stuntmen (see also Hal Needham's Burt Reynolds movies) can be relied upon to deliver on, at the very least, the fights & car crashes, but Road House does a lot more than that. It is also a very 'female gaze'-y movie.
My favorite part of Road House is that there's this assumption of a John Wick-style society of bouncers that exists across the US that everybody in the movie just kind of knows about and respects.
The immediately obvious joke of the movie is all the actors treating the very silly premise quite seriously, and while I liked the remake well enough stuff like the mid-fight “this piano is out of tune” riffs didn’t land at all
I hate when people say 80s movie in a derogatory way when in reality we were swimming in mid budget genre flicks that were well-made and really entertaining.
You could go to a new movie in the 80s/90s twice a week and 60-plus percent would be decent and entertaining. Now when I look at listings there are 1-2 movies a month that look mildly interesting (and aren’t super hero movies)
