The original Road House is by no means an award winning film. But it is one of the great guilty pleasures of all time. It shouldn't have been that hard to make a sequel. There's no need for a big budget, big name stars, and spectacular visual effects. Even the story didn't have to be original. All it needed was a good time vibe, and some great fist fights. I don't mean Matrix-style "wire-fu", just some well choreographed barroom brawls. Lots of them. There are a couple of decent fights in the movie, but none of them are memorable, and the focus is more on gun play. Plus, the way it ties in to the original film is laughable, bordering on insulting. Johnathon Schaech plays Shane Tanner, an undercover DEA agent who is good with his hands and feet. But here's the kicker...he's the son of Patrick Swayze's character Dalton!!!! Say what????? Let's see, the original Road House was made in 1989. So for Dalton to have a son in his late 20's (maybe even 30) in 2006...well you get the idea. They give it a cheesy explanation that he lived with his uncle Nate (Will Patton) while his father "travelled around a lot". Oh please. That itself almost warranted shutting this movie off. But I digress. Schaech is completely out of his element. Sure he can throw a couple of kicks, but he's got nothing going on as an actor. Plus, he's referred to in the movie by the bad guys as "pretty boy". I've never scrutinized men that closely, but I don't think this guy is too good looking. He looks sick. His face is way too thin, and his sunken eyes make it look like he's going to pass out at any moment. I'd never heard of him before, but I think he should give up acting and go back to his day job. Jake Busey plays the local drug runner Wild Bill. Busey is not a terrible actor. He was good in Starship Troopers, and even made a menacing villain in Hitcher 2. But here, he just chews the scenery in standard bad guy mode. Even his "threating" dialog is yawn worthy. We're supposed to buy him as the man that has the whole town in his pocket. But why? What does he do? Because he wants to buy a bar from Patton "by any means necessary"? Ellen Hollman has the token girlfriend role. A woman with a secret. Too bad that secret is about as difficult to figure out as 2+2. She's the local elementary school teacher who happens to be a former Army soldier. Guess what that means? It means that while she may quiver with fear for the majority of the movie, she'll be ready to smash heads when the fur starts to fly. Oh well, at least she's hot. Actually the fight between her and Wild Bill's girl is the best one in the movie. It's fast, brutal, and entertaining. Which leads me to my next problem with the movie...the fights. As I said Schaech knows how to throw a punch. The same can't be said for anyone he faces in the movie. Obviously the movie will all come down to Schaech versus Busey. Busey is an actor, not a fighter. He doesn't possess the skills to pull of a movie fight. Swayze may have been a trained dancer, but his athletic ability gave him the means to pull off well choreographed fights. He also faced a couple of worthy opponents, and had one killer (literally) move. None of that here. With a couple of exceptions, the fights are forced, poorly staged, and routine. The punches sound like someone smacking a 2X4 on the concrete, and there's even a couple of parts where the sound doesn't even match up to the punch. It's embarrassing. There isn't even the good southern/redneck music of the original. Road House had the Jeff Healy Band, who were a somewhat popular band at the time. This movie features a singer called John Otto, whose music is tepid, and his acting even worse. He's given one line in the movie, which was probably inserted to appease whatever fans he may have out there. Either that, or someone owed him a favor. My final complaint about the movie is one that comes out of just being picky...the continuity. Movies are shot out of sequence, and then it's the editor's job to piece it all together. Well someone should give the editor of this movie a little shove. The problems range from little things like people not looking the same direction when a shot changes, to RE-USED footage at the end of the movie. In the beginning, we are introduced to the bar, The Black Pellican. As the camera moves through the bar, you see the band, the bouncers, and the people dancing. At the end of the movie, when the bad guys have been defeated, we get another shot of the same bar, with insert shots of our hero sitting at the bar with his girl. The problem is, the footage of the people in the bar is the SAME footage from the beginning of the movie!!! I kid you not. It's the same people, standing (or dancing) in the same places, wearing the same clothes. Want to know the funniest part? You see bouncers in the shot that were KILLED earlier in the movie. Do yourself a favor, don't watch this movie unless YOU feel the need to go out and punch someone. This movie will make you angry enough to do it.
Review of Road House 2: Last Call
