DVD Commentary

Staying Alive

We compare the ''Road House 2'' DVD with its predecessor ''Road House'' -- Can Johnathon Schaech compete with Patrick Swayze?

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By Dalton Ross

Dalton Ross

Dalton Ross is an editor-at-large at EW and swears there are better pictures of him out there...somewhere.

Terms of Endearment. On Golden Pond. Children of a Lesser God. All these acclaimed films came out in the 1980s, but if you had to pick the one movie that best sums up the entire decade, it would be about a bouncer with a goofy name and goofier hair, notorious for spouting such oxymorons as ''pain don't hurt.'' It would be Road House. This Patrick Swayze curiosity symbolizes the excess of the '80s in pretty much every way imaginable, with some of the most awesomely ridiculous barroom-brawl scenes of all time, numerous naked bimbos, and plenty of classic bad-guy taunting (''I see you found my trophy room, Dalton. The only thing that's missing is your ass!'').

Which is precisely why Road House exists less as a movie than as a bona fide historical document of the Reagan years, a time in which audiences asked — nay, demanded — that people be attacked by stuffed polar bears, monster trucks demolish car showrooms, and Swayze do tai chi shirtless and flash his toned buttocks roughly 30 minutes into the proceedings. Of course, now we can look back and laugh. At least some of us can. While director Rowdy Herrington still doesn't seem in on the joke during his by-the-book commentary, Clerks director/fan Kevin Smith and his buddy Scott Mosier offer an alternate track where they lap up the Velveeta. (Even better is a snarky pop-up trivia option featuring warnings like ''Atrocious '80s pop tune ahead...seriously, prepare yourself.'') And while on-screen love interest Kelly Lynch notes comically in a retrospective that ''Patrick's mullet defied gravity and martial arts and explosions and sex — and probably water and hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes,'' Swayze himself claims without the slightest trace of irony that ''the whole tone of Road House fit in with everything I believe in.'' (???)

Apparently the Swayzinator didn't believe so much in Road House 2, because he is nowhere to be found in the new straight-to-video sequel. Johnathon Schaech — who also co-wrote the script — stars as Dalton's son, Shane, which either means someone's math is a little bit off or he is playing the youngest DEA agent in the world. In any event, he tries to save his uncle's bar, the Black Pelican, from a rowdy gang of drug dealers including—but not limited to—Jake Busey. However, this time, when the going gets tough, he shuts the place down. Uhhhhh, excuse me, but isn't the fourth Road House rule of being a bouncer Don't close the freakin' bar? And where's Schaech's bare bum? Didn't Swayze teach this kid anything? Even with girl-on-girl action and a random dwarf milling about, Road House 2 simply can't match the audacity of the original. It's a different type of pain. And this kind hurts. Road House: B+ Road House 2: C