 |
 |
 |
| previous column | next column |
Random Movie Review: Road House 2
01/08/07
by Stretch
As I am writing this, Mrs. Stretch is halfway across the country attending a wedding. I am home alone, and, like any wild and wooly husband, I know how to cut loose when the wife is out of town. I…uh…I went to Blockbuster and grabbed an armful of movies. The marquee pick of the bunch was Beerfest, which, theoretically, would have been a pretty hard movie to make not funny. I stand corrected. Egad was it horrible. Who are Broken Lizard? How did they get to make movies? Club Dread was only mildly amusing, Super Troopers was a waste of five bucks, and now Beerfest. I swear I won’t see the next film they put out. Oh well. They can’t all be Life Aquatic.
Anyway, while I was at Blockbuster, another film caught my eye.
I don’t have many rules in life. One rule is “always blow your nose if you feel something up in there.” (Because if you don’t blow it out, you technically don’t know what’s up in there, and that can’t be good.) Another rule is that any time someone with the last name of Busey is in a movie, said movie must be watched. I give you:
This is going to be fun. The cover has a wonderful straight-to-rental look, and I’m willing to bet that those two babes on the front aren’t actually in the film. RH2 stars the lead singer guy from the sleazy bloodbath That Thing You Do! (We will call him Wonderboy…get it—The Wonders?) Supporting Wonderboy in this opus is none other than Jake Busey, the offspring of insane and apparently immortal actor Gary Busey. To get caught up on the awesomeness that is the familia de la Busey, take a second and visit http://buseyworld.com/. Go ahead, I’ll wait for you.
Jake, left, Gary, right.
Not pictured: Their gigantic sets of teeth
Ready? Let’s pop this sucker in. I’m going to watch from my laptop so that I can pause and type.
While I’m waiting for the goodness to start, perhaps I should take a second and explain my loyalty to what is now, apparently, the franchise of Road House movies. The original Road House was ridiculous, but it was earnest in that lovable 80s sort of way. Sneakily endearing. And it starred Swayze back in his glory days. I’ve always thought that Swayze got ruined by the same kind of girly girl hype that swallowed up DiCaprio after he did Titanic. In reality, Swayze was never meant to be a hunk. He was a surprisingly subtle actor who had a habit of landing in really cheesy productions. I will go to my grave believing that his turn as Bodhi in Point Break was one of the most underrated performances of the last twenty years of cinema.
Anyway, enough ranting. As I ingest the first few minutes of this movie, several surprises leap out at me. First off, this movie additionally stars Will Patton, who was the white football coach in Remember the Titans. He’s a pretty good actor, so we’ll see where that goes. Also, Wonderboy had a hand in writing the screenplay. Hmm. We’ll watch his character development.
Key plot developments so far:
* Will Patton likes to talk to wooden seagulls.
* Evidently the new uniform for female DEA agents is fishnet stockings and a push-up bra. I was not aware of this.
* Will Patton destroys a pack of thugs with his bare hands, but he is no match for Busey Jr.’s bionic chompers.
Okay. So far Wonderboy has turned down some sugar snuggin from the aforementioned DEA and rebuffed the advances of a frisky bayou girl. He must be holding out for someone special. Either that, or…
This just in—BE NICE, UNTIL IT’S TIME TO NOT BE NICE!
Busey is anger defined. He looks like Al Pacino. You know, if Pacino didn’t look like a hairy shriveled up raisin. And if Pacino was an albino. Other than that, dead ringers.
Wonderboy just got kicked in the family jewels, and he is recoiling in pain. Good thing. At least everything down there works.
Wow. Surprise entrance by the indestructible Grover Coulson, better known as the longsuffering uncle of Boobie Miles in Friday Night Lights. He also has the saddest picture in the history of the Internet Movie Database:
Mr. Coulson? Would you like a popsicle or something? Anything?
Okay. RH2 is taking the angle that Wonderboy is Patrick Swayze’s son. Wonderboy informs us that his dad (Swayze) is now dead, and that he has been searching for the killers for five years. Swayze dead? Obviously, we can not accept this.
Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Frisky Bayou Girl drags Wonderboy off to bed and has her way with him. Unfortunately, this leads to a bunch of people getting brained across town because Wonderboy wasn’t there to save them. Also, Wonderboy isn’t….uh…well…why isn’t he enjoying himself?
This is the Frisky Bayou Girl.
Probably no reason to get excited about this, right?
Developments:
* Highlight of the film so far: Busey randomly ripping out an elderly patient’s IV while rampaging through a hospital.
* I’m telling you, Will Patton is a bad, bad man. The butt kicking continues unabated.
* Cars explode when rear ended. Filing that one away for a rainy day.
Okay. We’ve meandered toward the end of this film, and we have Wonderboy and Busey duking it out in the Black Pelican Club. I’m not spoiling anything here; it’s been the inevitable destination from the past hour’s worth of plot. All in all, it has been an enjoyable ride. The movie is surprisingly high quality, and it dwells just inside the shade of guilty pleasure. I thought it would be one of those enjoyable bad movies, but it’s probably a little bit better than straight camp. It’s a worthy B-movie offering, and here in Hippo Land that gets you three stars.
For the record, this film could have achieved the coveted 4-star Hippo Rating by incorporating the ending that we all wanted to see: Gary Busey and Patrick Swayze making surprise cameos in the end and having a chainsaw fight inside a burning building. Now THAT would have been an ending. Oh well. Maybe that will be the premise for Road House 3.
Even if it’s not, that’s cool. They can’t all be Life Aquatic.
Rating: ♣♣♣ (out of four)
__________________________
Discuss this and any other column deadlyhippos.com column at our message board.