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Parents' Guide to

Road House

By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Bouncer tames bar in '80s classic; sex, violence, drinking.

Movie R 1989 114 minutes
Road House Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 5+

Based on 2 parent reviews

bigdaddyshummer
bigdaddyshummer Adult
October 7, 2022
age 2+
AlexFieldstone
AlexFieldstone Adult
May 3, 2020
age 8+
Fine for all mature kids. At the end of the day, it’s just karate!

This title has:

Great role models
Too much swearing
See all 2 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Patrick Swayze plays Dalton. In ROAD HOUSE, he's the chief bouncer at a busy night club, who also happens to have a college degree in philosophy. We know he's good at his job -- things are running smoothly, perhaps too smoothly for his sense of adventure. When offered a job to clean up a violent and chaotic Missouri bar, he says yes, jumps in his Mercedes, drives who knows how far, and takes on the challenge. The owner (Kevin Tighe) describes it as a place where they "sweep up the eyeballs after closin'" every night, and the reality doesn't disappoint. The band plays behind a chain link fence to avoid bottles flung by critical drunken customers. The bartender is stealing, other employees are dealing drugs, and one guy is letting other guys kiss his girlfriend's breasts for twenty dollars. (Ten per kiss, he calculates helpfully.) The room is filled with other model citizens -- drunken, shirtless, foul-mouthed jerks. In no time, Dalton has the place filled with men in shirts and ties and women in fancy dresses. What Dalton doesn't know is that the little town is under the thumb of Brad (Ben Gazzara), a sadistic mobster with a coterie of thugs eager to tear Dalton limb from limb. He won't allow anyone to sell liquor to Dalton's club. He sends guys in to start fights there. His men set fire to Dalton's landlord's home. After the movie's first major fight, Dalton, who usually stitches up his own wounds, ends up in the ER where he meets Doc (Kelly Lynch). Sparks fly and they are soon a couple, which makes Brad even angrier. In the middle of the chaos, Dalton's mentor and aging bouncer Wade (Sam Elliott) arrives to help out, but it doesn't end well for him. Brad's mob mixes it up with Dalton over and over until, in a climactic encounter, Dalton and Brad face off, with fists, knives, spears, and guns.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (2 ):
Kids say (3 ):

Teens probably won't have much interest in this '80s cult classic. After a just a few minutes into Road House, as choreographed fights keep coming, and the conflicts between coarseness and refinement keep repeating, it feels as if the movie is a kind of deliberate in-joke shared by the filmmakers. They made a movie that is a succession of fight scenes, strung together, one after another, like flowers in a lei. A flimsy plot provides the string to hang the fights from. This minimizes the need for everything else in the film, including the relationship between the beautiful Kelly Lynch character and the beautiful Patrick Swayze character, and the friendship between the older bouncer portrayed by Sam Elliott and his protégé the younger bouncer.

But questions nag anyway: In what small town is a falling-down barn right next door to a sprawling mansion? What small town can support a night club the size of Disneyland, where hundreds of drinkers and dancers crowd the place every night? Nothing in this movie makes sense. Nevertheless, Lynch, Swayze, and Elliot are so watchable, so smooth and likable, that anyone old enough to handle the material who's looking for this kind of violent, sexually-charged, mindless entertainment probably won't be too terribly disappointed.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about why someone with a degree in philosophy might be attracted to manhandling rowdy drunks for a living. Do you think the screenwriter made Dalton a college graduate to attempt to somehow elevate the character above the lowlifes he has to police in his job?

  • The fight choreography makes some of the fights seem almost dance-like. Do you think that makes the many fight scenes easier to watch for viewers who aren't necessarily fans of movie violence?

  • Road House remains a cult classic. Why do you think it's still popular?

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