Road House [HD]

Bad action has rarely been so good
Forget "Dirty Dancing": Patrick Swayze's career peaked in this and the similarly underrated "Point Break." It doesn't quite reach the stratospheric heights (or is it depths?) of Arnold Schwarzenegger's deservedly legendary "Commando," but "Road House" is still the stuff of which B-movie legend is made. Starring Swayze as the head bouncer at a rowdy Southern bar called the Double Deuce, "Road House" derives its appeal largely from the ingenious idea of having a bunch of rednecks for villains. You get to see Swayze's Dalton, perhaps the only Mercedes-driving, philosophy-majoring bouncer in history, take on a seemingly endless succession of slack-jawed inbred troglodytes as he tames the Double Deuce and ensures victory for truth, justice, and the American way.

The Double Deuce is one of the those bars where it seems half the patrons are on parole, but that doesn't stop them from throwing fists at the proverbial drop of a hat. I've always believed that bar fights held vast, untapped...

Nothing like a quick stop @ the Roadhouse
To avoid any confusion, by rating this movie 5 stars I am NOT suggesting that it is in the same league as GLADIATOR, THE LORD OF THE RINGS (trilogy), GONE WITH THE WIND or any other top-calibre flick. However, this film doesn't try to compete with the likes of top-rated movies, and that's the beauty of it.

The story is based on a top-notch bar bouncer (Patrick Swayze) who is compelled to call in his old mentor (Sam Elliot) for an especially tough project. Instead of just busting heads and throwing hoodlums out of the bar, these guys end up having to save the whole town!

This is a B-movie all the way. In my opinion, it COULD be the greatest B-movie of all time. In short, despite being stupid it is also immensely entertaining. The plot is contrived. There are aspects of it that are way, way beyond being remotely believable. It seems the whole movie was inspired by pushing the envelope on the concept of the bar brawl.

Despite its limited plot, the...

Great movie, bad packaging
At this point, I'm sure pretty much everyone has seen the movie so I won't go into the details about why this movie is so fun and rewatchable. Overall, this is a good blu-ray release as far as content. The blu-ray is bare bones, however this release includes the DVD that has all of the extras from the last DVD release(yes, it has Kevin Smith's and Scott Mosier's commentary track).

Now for the bad. The packaging is awful. The case looks like a normal blu-ray blue plastic case until you remove one of the discs and reveal the spaces or holes in the plastic. And the best part? The holes are right where the disc is resting in the case, which means if any blunt or sharp object hits the case, it will go through the thin plasic sleeve cover and the paper cover and damage the disc. I imagine amazon will have a lot of damage returns with this one since they are sending it in a bubble lined envelope (it really needs to be shipped in a box). My blu-ray cover was punctured in...

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