Transcript

Intro Clip

All you have to do is follow 3 simple rules. 1, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. 2, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And 3, be nice. Come on, honey. If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Okay. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him, but be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal. Uh-huh. You call it a cocksucker impersonal? No. It's two nouns combined to elicit a prescribed response. I wonder if somebody calls my mama a whore. Is she? I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice. Well, uh, how are we supposed to know when that is? You won't. I'll let you know. You are the bouncers, I am the cooler. All you have to do is watch my back and each other's. Take out the trash.

Steve

It's Two Dads, One Movie. It's the podcast where two middle-aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Two Dads, One Movie. I'm Steve and I'm Nic, and today we are talking about the 1989 classic Road House as we wrap up the '80s portion of Two Dads, Two Decades. And Nic, you picked Road House for us, so tell us a little bit about your history with it and why you picked it for us.

Nic

Oh man, I mean, I think you and I probably have similar histories with this one. This wasn't one, you know, I would have been aware of when I was 10 years old, right? This is one that hit you know, in my late teens and 20s. And it's just rewatchable and quotable and stupid and goofy. And like, the girls didn't want to watch it, so you could have bro time. And, you know, you kind of had no choice because there were no options of girls who might want to come watch with you. But man, I remember it being so fun and like the cheesiness of it and the action and the bar fights and the music. And it's just always been a blast. So I thought this would be a great one to talk about with you. What about you, Steve? When did you see this one?

Steve

Yeah, I think the fair— I honestly believe that I saw this the very first semester I went away to college. So I actually went to like 4 different colleges, which is a long and boring story. But the first one I went to is called Southern Oregon University. I was there for like a semester and the dorm I was in, it was like the building had— it was like a co-ed mixed building, but every floor was like men or women. So it's like on my floor was only dudes in like every room. And there was like this one group that they got. These guys just had this pair that was there. They just had like a decent sized TV and a huge DVD collection.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And so it's like, dudes are always just like, we'd hang out in that room, like watch movies. And Road House was one of the movies that they watched a bunch. It was the first time I saw it. I thought, this is fucking awesome. Like, it was very much— it hits in a way like an 18 or 19-year-old is just going to absolutely love in so many ways. And so I've seen it a ton since then. It's one that I like, you know, jokingly kind of think of as one of my favorite movies. Not like— like, I do love it unironically in some ways, but also ironically in others where it's like, sure, it's It definitely crosses that so bad it's good thing for a little bit.

Nic

But it still feels like real love to the viewer. To you, it still feels like love.

Steve

It's something amazing. And, you know, we're obviously going to get into all of it, but like there are elements of this movie that just absolutely like withstand the test of time. I mean, tell— mention throat ripping to like anyone who's even come into contact with this movie over the years and they'll know this is what you're talking about.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. And it spawned MacGruber, my— one of my favorite movies of all time. I mean, another throat rip classic. Yeah. And, and also this movie, like, I love The Blues Brothers is one of my favorite movies of all time. The scene at Bob's country bunker where they're playing country music behind that chicken wire and stuff. This movie is like a whole movie of that part. It is wonderful. Like, it's fantastic. So, yeah, I can't wait to talk about this one.

Steve

I love it. Real quick, are you familiar with— there's an old Twitter user, old Twitter account called Dad Boner. You ever heard of this guy? He created a character named Carl Wilson, and like, he's like this, you know, deadbeat dad divorcee kind of guy, like this character. And he's like, whatever. But he's like way into like Guy Fieri and Roadhouse and all this stuff. And he wrote a Roadhouse sequel called Roadhouse 2012: Pain Don't Hurt. It's absolutely hilarious. It stars him and it's like him and Guy Fieri are starring in it as both themselves and the characters. And then also Barry from Storage Wars is in it as the Emmett character, which is like just absolutely hilarious. So nice kind of thing. If you can track it down, I don't even know if it's still on Twitter after all the craziness there, but that was a very funny thing. Always made me, always made me love this movie more. All right, let's jump into the facts on Roadhouse. All right. Roadhouse came out on May 19th, 1989, with an R rating and a running time of 114 minutes. It's directed by Rowdy Harrington. And if there was a better first name for the director of this movie than Rowdy, I don't know. What it could be.

Nic

I almost like we were talking about, we don't know what else this guy's done. It almost sounds like it's an Alan Smithy for like the redneck type things, you know?

Steve

Right. Did you make a movie about bar fights and like raw-dogging it in barns and you don't want to put your name on it? Use the name Rowdy Harrington. All right. It's written by R. Lance Hill and Hillary Henkin. And again, the fact that a woman was involved in writing this movie to me is very surprising. It does not feel like a movie that has a woman's kind of like perspective at all.

Nic

Like, it honestly feels like R. Lance Hill dictated it and Hillary Henkin typed it. And that's no disrespect to Hillary Henkin, but based on the point of view of this film, complete disrespect to Arlene Sill if true.

Steve

However, starring Patrick Swayze, Kelly Lynch, and Sam Elliott. Scores not particularly good on any of the three fronts we usually look. Rotten Tomatoes, 44%, definitely rotten. On IMDb, a 6.7, which is not garbage, but is under that— we've discovered, right, 7 is sort of the threshold for like a decent flick. So we're underneath that. And we get a pair of thumbs down, least surprising two thumbs down in my opinion, from Siskel and Ebert ever. Awards, no No award wins that I could find worth mentioning, but it did get nominated for 5 Razzie Awards in 1990. Didn't win any of them, but it was nominated for worst picture, worst director, worst screenplay, worst actor for Patrick Swayze, and worst supporting actor for Ben Gazara. I looked into it. The movie that kind of swept those categories generally, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, written and directed by William Shatner. He won the director worst Razzie, the actor worst, the picture won worst picture. Cleaned up the Razzies that year, Star Trek V. So, um, and on a budget of $15 million, Road House brought home $30.1 million, just over 2x what it cost. So that's at least a moderate success. That's not a total flop or anything. So yeah, interesting.

Nic

Made its money back.

Steve

It did.

Nic

Hey, sweep up all the broken glass.

Steve

Well, you got to sweep up those eyeballs every night, man. So, all right, you, you picked this movie for us, man. Jump in. How do we start?

Nic

All right, so we get immediately— we're like, uh, shown this bar and there's some butt-rocking band playing. As the music throughout this movie, it's always live band at a bar. It's very good. You know, it's not like the greatest songs of all time that I'll listen to in the car driving around, but it really like puts you inside the movie. So, so I love it. And, uh, what is it, diegetic, non-diegetic?

Steve

You're talking about, right?

Nic

Kind of like crosses the threshold because it's the same music, you know. But, uh, very good. And we get, um, and this is like a bar that's doing well, the band's killing it, whatever. This hot chick pulls up in a Ferrari and there's like a dude in a bolo tie, a black bolo tie, who's Mr. Tiller, right? Or Tillerman?

Steve

Yeah, sounds right. Yeah, something like that.

Nic

He's the owner of the Double Deuce.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

But he's like walking around this place just looking impressed by how well the bar is doing. So there's all these scenes of like money changing hands, right? There's one guy who hands a gold American Express card and he's like, oh, this gold plastic will do the trick. He said something about gold plastic, which kills me. And then, you know, we get a nice side profile of our hero Dalton Patrick Swayze with like one of the better shaped mullets I've ever seen in my life. I wouldn't even call it a mullet because it's just, it's so windswept and styled.

Steve

Yeah, it's not a mullet, I don't think, because I think it's long enough in front that you really can't call it a mullet, even though he does sweep it back. Like, that's how he wears it. But like the actual like style, you know, isn't super mullet-y. Like, yeah, he really looks—.

Nic

It's kind of party all over.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. It's a party one way, you know, left every way. Right and left. Real quick on the band, because I was wondering this when I was watching, I'm like, is this like a cover or is this a cover band? Or like, is this even a real band? Is this actors? No, no, no. That song, Don't Throw Stones, and that band, they are the Crusados. That is their song. They got that band to play in the, you know, so I don't think the song was written for the movie. I think it was just like, yeah, let's put this band in this and they'll play their song in it. So like they got to open a major Hollywood picture with their song, Don't Throw Stones. And then I don't know about you, but I never heard from them again. No, I had no idea.

Nic

Probably cashed in on that, and they, you know, most of the budget probably went to that.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Um, so of course, you know, Swayze Dalton is the cooler, and he's looking around the bar. He's got his eye on everything, and he's watching all the stuff that's happening. He sees a couple of classic '80s a-holes, right, as he's just being like 100% cool with them. Yeah, until he's not cool and, you know, kicks him out of the bar. So he dispatches the situation in a way that does not disturb the business, right? Which is very impressive to Mr. Tiller, who's watching with the creepiest look on his face that he has throughout the movie. His look of loving Dalton's shit is like, you either gotta smile more or make it straighter, but it's like too in between, man. You gotta cut that shit out.

Steve

Yeah, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty wild. Um, Tillman apparently is his name. Yeah, there we go. Okay, but, um, but yeah, a couple of things here. So basically, uh, first of all, Dalton is the only person that could possibly look this badass in a pair of pleated linen pants, for one thing.

Nic

And he's looking very River Wild-ish.

Steve

Yeah, a little bit. Looking like, looking like Straytherin in River Wild, for sure. He's got kind of a dad vibe to him. A little bit. You know, there's an element of that. But like, can we talk briefly about like, what the fuck is a cooler? And I know that we're not, we're not new or unique bringing this up in podcasts that have talked about this movie. But like, I spent, I met my wife at a bar in our early 20s. I spent between college and having kids, which was like 15 years. I, you know this, we used to hang out every once in a while there too. I used to spend most of my free evenings at a bar and I knew a lot of bouncers, knew a lot of bartenders, and I never once heard anyone refer to anyone on staff as a cooler. And this was a bar that like had trouble sometimes, not, you weren't sweeping the eyeballs up or whatever every night, but they, you know, it would get a little rough at times. And so what the hell is a cooler? And is this something that exists outside of Roadhouse?

Nic

Yeah. Is it like a thing in honky tonks or were they just like, we don't want to be like, bouncer because it doesn't sound cool enough. What sounds cool enough? Cooler. I've got it. I've never heard of it before.

Steve

Is the mess up part is he later, later on in the movie, he refers to the other security staff at the bar he ends up working at. You're the bouncers, I'm the cooler. Like, so it's not like bouncer isn't a thing that exists in this world. It's just that there's also this special tai chi kung fu guy who can like zen everybody out before the bouncers have to boot them, I guess. Like, it's—.

Nic

He made up his own position and got hired at it. Yeah, he's brilliant.

Steve

I remember one of my first jobs after I worked with a guy whose title was marketing technologist, and I asked if he made it up. He said, yeah. I'm like, why? Um, anyway, so yeah, so Tillman is there to recruit Dalton, basically. Dalton takes a knife, uh, wound to his arm in the fight without a reaction. Oh, completely.

Nic

It's very Nic Cage in Con Air, like getting shot and just continuing to walk.

Steve

Yeah. And then we— the next time we see Dalton, he's actually in like the office or whatever at the bar sewing his own, you know, making stitches and sewing up his own wound.

Nic

Yeah. So we used to have a thing, uh, in in college when we talked about things that make these type of movies great.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And one of the concepts, uh, which is not universal but was funny, was the 3 S's. And it was a strip club, a supermarket, and self-surgery. And, uh, because movies that ended up having like supermarket— like, uh, Cobra and Big Lebowski falling down, like, yeah. So anyway, Swayze doing self-surgery really put a hop in my step when I was watching. I love seeing those scenes.

Steve

I feel like this might be— need to be a new trope that we add, a new tag. Yeah, because like definitely The Predator had this, right? The Predator gave himself self-surgery. And I know we haven't done Rambo 3 yet, but come on, we're going to.

Nic

It's in the hopper.

Steve

He cauterizes a wound, for Christ's sake. Like, yeah. But yeah, so definitely something to keep an eye out for.

Nic

And Tillman wants to hire Dalton because he heard he was the best, or he said, I need the best.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And then Dalton's like, Wade Garrett's the best, who we haven't met yet. That's Sam Elliott. We're going to meet him later.

Steve

Yes, we are. A whole lot of him.

Nic

So the finances of this deal. Dalton looks like— I— it doesn't say where they are at the beginning, but it looks almost like somewhere nicer to live than fucking outside of Kansas City where he ends up. It looks like Miami or—.

Steve

Yeah, I got the vibe maybe LA, just the way people are dressed.

Nic

Yeah, it looks like a fancy place, right? And then, uh, he's getting them out of there, and Dalton seems like very successful, very needed, probably well compensated there. And the guy offers him, uh, Dalton's terms are $5,000 up front and then $500 a night. 'Plus you pay my medical expenses.' Right.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And to a guy who just watched him stitch himself up, I'd be like, 'Dude, I'll fucking take that.

Steve

You don't seem to—' Let's see, needle and thread budget. Got it.

Nic

It's like someone says like, 'You pay my gas,' and you're like, 'Well, you don't have a driver's license, so that's perfect.' Um, yeah, so Dalton gets inside his sick, uh, Mercedes-Benz coupe with, uh, New York plates and drives off. He says, 'When can I expect you?' He's just like Fuck you, I'll just show up.

Steve

Yeah, I'll be there. 'Cause Tillman's got a plane ticket for him. He's like, yeah, I bought your plane ticket. He goes, I don't fly, too dangerous. When, yeah, okay. So he's off to Jasper, Missouri. Originally we're just told, oh, it's, I got this bar, the Double Deuce, Tillman says, I got this bar. I recently came into some money and I want to clean it up. Right now it's a place where you sweep up the eyeballs at the end of the night, which is like, I don't even really want to unpack all that. But, you know, we find out it's not just outside Kansas City, it's actually a place called Jasper, Missouri. So we are talking about, You know, I'm assuming somewhere kind of in the middle of Missouri, near Kansas City, but not that near. Yeah. So not really close to St. Louis or anything like that, right? So this is like rural Missouri.

Nic

This is that town with like 5,000 population at most. At most. Absolutely. Yeah. They have the Double Deuce Bar. They have an auto parts store and a Ford dealership and then a general store. Yeah.

Steve

That seems like about it. And they're all close to each other. In some shots, you can see multiple of them in the same establishing shot. Yeah. It's like the kind of town that has like a single stoplight, if any, right? And so that is one reason why I I do not for a second believe when we first see the Double Deuce and it is a rowdy, crazy place. It's got the chicken wire up in front of the band. So they, you know, all the bottles being thrown at them, which I'm like, how is that even helpful? Because that the glass is just gonna shatter against the thing and go through, through them. But whatever. There are not, there are not this many sort of like classically LA hot women in a place like Jasper, Missouri. Dude, it's like—.

Nic

All the women look like Larry and Balki's girlfriends on Perfect Strangers. Exactly. Yes.

Steve

Oh my God, good pull. Yeah, it's, it's wild. It just doesn't make sense for like, for like where they are. Yeah, you know, not at all.

Nic

And the guys, it's not like it's also classy guys. No, the guys are like all a bunch of shit kickers, like just poorly groomed, slobby, uh, just horrible.

Steve

Yeah, all the staff looks like what I'd expect from, from that area. You know, most of the dudes in that place, yeah, are just sort of like schlubs. And then there's these like miniskirt-clad, you know, big hair, kind of like, like I said, like kind of especially late '80s, like L.A. women, you know, looking like hot chicks. Yeah. And it just doesn't make any sense because they're outside of Kansas City, Missouri. Maybe, maybe I am just totally, you know, ignorant about the, the kind of people in Missouri.

Nic

It seems like you'd want to go into the big city, you know, if you're, if you're dressing up that much, drive the extra 20 miles. Exactly. And go, so maybe, maybe you run into, uh, Brett Saberhagen or something like that. Um, so Dalton is kind of like looking around the Double Deuce and he's scoping it out. And again, this is like his vision. He can spot the problems immediately and he can see, you know, the, uh, the drug deals happening, the bouncers letting people in with fake IDs, and, you know, the bartender skimming from the till and all that stuff. So dude, he immediately— he's like He's like a John Taffer. He's like a superhuman John Taffer.

Steve

Which would really be just a human. Yeah. Would be a superhuman John Taffer. No, but like, he, you know, especially the fake ID thing, like it's clear that one particular like member of the security staff is letting in clearly underage women. Like these are young looking girls compared to some of the others in the area. And so, you know, that's gross. And he does clock that. But almost immediately one of the waitresses, her name's Carrie Ann, we meet her. She's much more kind of, a little more homely, a little more mousy, you know, than the kind of women who are the patrons there. But she, like, knows who he is. Like, immediately is like, "Oh, I know you." That's the wildest thing. How the fuck do these people know who this guy is?

Nic

Working at a bar, you know— And just, like, how would— Unless the guy said, "Hey, Dalton's coming. His hair looks like this." Right.

Steve

"Who's Dalton?" "Oh, he's the world's best cooler." Which even— How did Tillman even know? Right. It's like, how does Tillman know who he is? How does Carrie-Anne know who he is? Like everybody else? Oh, that's Dalton. First of all, one fucking name. Like, there may be a lot of people named Dalton. Like, I don't know why this— it's not Cher or Madonna, right? Like, this could potentially be multiple people. But yeah, everybody knows who he is. And it's like, that doesn't make any sense. Not at all. This is like pre-internet even. This isn't even like, you know, he went viral on TikTok, so we all know who he is. Like, none of that shit. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Um, but he's so legendary. I mean, he has an aura about him, right? Nobody goes in and then, you know, the bartender's kind of pissed that he's not drinking, Played by Terry Funk, former WWF wrestler. Morgan. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, all this stuff is happening and one guy hits on the blonde chick, like one of these big-haired hot blonde chicks, and he says— and this is like a gross-looking guy— and he says, what do you say you and me get nipple to nipple? I've used that line.

Steve

I've used that line. You can ask my wife. Uh, yeah, and her response is, I can do that without you, I believe is what she says, which Uh, I'll be honest, maybe see it, give it a shot.

Nic

Yeah, I know, I'd like to see the effort there.

Steve

Quite the parlor trick if, if possible, because it doesn't sound like the kind of thing you can do on your own.

Nic

But then, you know, the, uh, the owner's kind of walking around and showing, you know, how dilapidated this bar is, and there's all this graffiti on the wall and people have written there, and somebody has written like, for a great fuck, call whatever. Yeah. And the owner takes out a Sharpie and he changes fuck to Buick, which I thought was just— oh, that's so great. I love that. Oh man, that's—.

Steve

At least it's an American car. Yeah. Um, And then there's a big bar fight that starts. And the way it starts is this one guy sitting with his girlfriend, wife, whatever, some girl he's with is looking. These two guys are staring at her and he looks up at them and goes, hey, like, I'll let you kiss him. Like, what do you think? You know, her boobs, right? For $20, you can kiss them, $10 each or whatever. And the guy's like, oh, okay. He reaches over. She doesn't take her clothes off, but she takes her top down to her bra. And the guy starts massaging her tits. And the guy's like, what are you going to do? What are you doing? You're going to kiss him? He's like, no. It's like, well, then what are you doing? It's like, I don't got $20. And that starts a huge brawl. Yeah, absolutely wild.

Nic

I like when those fights start where it's like between, you know, these 4 people. Yeah. And then 2 guys that are sitting way over by the jukebox just start punching each other on cue. Very Airplane.

Steve

Oh, it was awesome, dude.

Nic

It was very— this whole thing was like— and people are doing WWF finishing moves to each other. There's suplexes, picking people up and throwing them. This looked like the Royal Rumble. There were bottles flying, there were chairs flying. Women were in it. Like, it didn't matter who you were. This was an equal opportunity brawl.

Steve

An egalitarian Hell in a Cell match.

Nic

Um, yeah. So, uh, yeah, yeah.

Steve

So Dalton's got to get— he knows, he knows what he has to fix. Yeah, he knows what the situation is. He knows how rowdy it is now. You know, he talks to Tillman a little bit, but then he goes and gets a new car. Not like a new car, obviously. He gets a different car because his car, he knows he's going to get messed up. So he buys, you know, the shitty old— I don't know if it's like a Grand Prix or something like that. It's like an old, like, Pontiac maybe. Um, not even 100% sure, but like, he You know, drives it and he takes it to the auto parts place and buys a bunch of tires because he just knows, like, when he gets started, he's gonna get like—.

Nic

They're gonna get window busted and slash my tires.

Steve

Like, he's prepped, which is really smart. So he buys this crappy car to do that. Um, and, uh, and then I think brief— oh, and then this is when he finds where to live. And this is cool. We meet Emmett, who's this really cool grizzled old guy with a great beard, like an awesome old guy beard. Yeah, uh, really fantastic. Like, like, honestly adjacent to Santa Claus. Like, that's how good the beard is. Um, and he basically is like willing to rent this barn apartment out to Dalton, which is gorgeous.

Nic

It's like this beautiful, like, remodeled hayloft, right? You know, and he's fully furnished. Oh, no electricity. It's like, it seems like it's always the perfect temperature there. It looks out on this river, like, this beautiful view and everything. I mean, yeah, I'm very jealous. That's one of my favorite lofts.

Steve

Yeah, it does have those wild, like, sort of piano-loading windows that open, like, completely top down. It's a very dangerous kind of thing, but, you know, it's beautiful. I think he says it's $100 a month. Yeah. Are you I, goddamn, I get that it's Missouri in 1989, but still, that's wild. But across the little river from them is a person that we're meeting now who lives there named Brad Wesley. And Brad arrives via helicopter, which terrifies Emmett's horses. And Emmett and Dalton both run down to like calm them, whatever. And yeah, we just kind of get a glimpse of like, it's clear Wesley is a shitty rich guy who like flies in on a helicopter and lives just across the creek for whatever reason. This little creek separates Emmett's farm or ranch or whatever it is from Brad Wesley. Like Scarface estate, got palatial, like, you know, fucking Dom Herrera in, uh, in Commando mansion, basically. Uh, but yeah, so that's, that's— now we finally meet, we meet Brad Wesley, just get a little glimpse of him.

Nic

When I was a kid, my grandfather lived in, uh, Cape Cod, and they were on this canal. So, you know, his place was on the water, and a few properties down from him was this, like, seafood processing guy, this guy who, like, had licenses to get clams and quahogs and all this stuff. And my grandfather and that guy, he was like his arch enemy. And so he was like the Brad Wesley of the street. And one thing that that guy did in revenge for my grandfather taking out like 3 little grandkids to pull like 5 total clams out of the ground that really belonged to this guy, he dumped all the broken clamshells from his factory in, in the water in front of my grandfather's house so that we could never go in the water without shoes on because it was all like broken pieces of shells and stuff. Love it. So, uh, fuck Mr. Kelly. Yeah, fuck Mr. Kelly. Fuck Brad Wesley. That's right. But yeah, Brad Wesley, man, what a, uh, what an entrance for him.

Steve

And Ben Gazara, who plays Wesley, is just not an intimidating or scary guy. He's a good actor. He's not a great actor. He's a good actor, and he definitely tries everything he can with this role. But like, there are a few scenes where he acts so tough, like, you don't know why I don't like you, O'Connor, you're a bleeder. Like, you know, yeah, that stuff we'll get to later, but He— it's not scary. He's not scary at all.

Nic

Well, and he's never really confronted. Like, he's just beating on a guy who's not allowed to hit back. True, that's a good point.

Steve

Uh, yeah, I would have rather seen Paul Gleason in this role. I feel like he would have been scarier.

Nic

Dude, I would have loved some Gleason. Um, so now they're having like a staff meeting at the Double Deuce, and Dalton's running shit, you know, and he starts firing people. He's, you know, telling the guys like, you know, I saw you— you don't have the right temperament to Terry Funk, get out of here. I saw you stealing, I saw you dealing drugs. He gives the 3 most important rules in life, which are: never underestimate your opponent. Number 2, always take it outside. And number 3, be nice. So those are his things. And he's really emphasizing that.

Steve

And there's actually, and this sort of goes right to Dalton's sort of Zen-like take on everything. And, you know, one of the guys who has not yet been fired, I think his name is Steve, asks him, well, so a guy calls me a cocksucker. Like, that's not personal? And he goes, no, it's a few syllables that are intended to elicit a response. Like, you can control how you respond to that. It's just words. Like, you're nice until it's time not to be nice. And then like somebody, and then he goes, what if he calls my mom a whore? And she goes, he goes, well, is she? And it's just like a great, like, you know, why do you care? It's like, it reminded me, it's so funny. Like I've never really thought of this in this context because of the order of these pieces of art that I was, you know, that I encountered. But there's a great scene in the TV show Schitt's Creek, which I've mentioned on this podcast a few times. Where one of the characters, Alexis, tells her brother David, like, "Nobody's thinking about you the way you're thinking about you." And the idea is just like, you can't let what other people say or think about you matter, 'cause it really doesn't. And I feel like it's very much what Dalton's trying to impart on this bunch of rowdy bouncers and bartenders. It's like, "Dude, it doesn't matter. They're just trying to get a rise out of you. You are not actually a cocksucker, unless you are, in which case, whatever, go enjoy sucking cock. But why should it matter?" Right? Yeah.

Nic

Well, 'cause they're all in like, "I wish a motherfucker would" mode.

Steve

And Dalton's trying to get them out of that headspace.

Nic

Headspace. Exactly. And Dalton, when he's at the bar, when he's working, he's only drinking black coffee. And at one point he goes to order coffee from the bar and the guy says, leaded or unleaded?

Steve

And Dalton chuckles at it. It's a great little line. It's like, really?

Nic

Isn't that a thing that people have said forever? He probably would've heard that a lot. But I think Dalton's, he's trying to build up the community and stuff.

Steve

He's got to build rapport with his new direct reports.

Nic

Yeah. Yep. Uh, let's see. So we see some more action here. Dalton's seeing some stealing. He's seeing some— yeah, the fake IDs get let in. Uh, a guy confronts Dalton. He's like, uh, there's a lady dancing up on a table and Dalton's trying to get her down, and this guy's like, oh, fuck you, man. Pulls out switchblade, the official weapon of crime. There you go. And, uh, Dalton's like, smashes his head through a cocktail table. Really smoothly.

Steve

Smoothly but viciously. Real good.

Nic

Was that thing made of graham crackers? I can't believe how like easily it went through.

Steve

It did look like maybe like particle board or something like, yeah, or like balsa wood, the kind of thing you make paper airplanes out of back in the day.

Nic

And then, and then, uh, Tillman watching him, he's just like, he's good, right? Real good. Tillman's enjoyment scenes, dude, it looks like, uh, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Boogie Nights where he's holding the boom mic and seeing Dirk Diggler's dick for the first time. He's just like, yeah, yes.

Steve

And John Lovitz in The Wedding Singer, like, he's going, he's losing it, and I'll reap the benefit. Like, it's just got that look. John loves it.

Nic

It's like an evil enjoyment that he's having. Oh, uh, and what Dalton says at the end of all this ordeal, you know, where it seems like, yay, Dalton saved the day, he's like, it'll get worse before it gets better. And he walks out then to see that his car has become destroyed à la the Street Fighter 2 bonus level. That's right. Yeah, yeah, it's just completely smashed, like you said, tires, window, everything.

Steve

Antenna got ripped off. Uh, before he leaves for the night, he does catch— so Steve is one of the bouncers who's letting in the people with no ID. Oh yeah. And he takes one of them back to the storeroom room and is banging her. It's literally like, you're gonna be my regular Saturday night thing, baby, which is just the most romantic thing said in this movie. Um, but that's when Dalton— that's when Dalton catches, you know, it's like, uh, you're out of here. Like, can you fire Steve then? And then, yeah, he fires the bartender who saw was skimming. Um, and the bartender is very incredulous about it, and we learn why quickly, but he's kind of like, are you sure? Yeah, sure, I want to hear it from this, you know, from Tillman, wherever he goes, you're out of here, you know, whatever. And it's like, so he does fire him, but it's like clear there was like an expectation. That guy clearly had an expectation he'd never be fired for whatever reason.

Nic

Yeah, even when he brought up the reason, he was like, I figure you're costing this place $150 a night. And the bartender was just like, so? He wasn't like, yeah, but I bring in people. Like, there was no counterargument. It was just like, and what?

Steve

Right. Yeah. Um, and then we get an interesting little moment. Dalton's gone back home and he's like going to bed, or maybe he's actually asleep, whatever. And a pool party in the middle of the night breaks out across the river at, uh, at Wesley's house, you know, we get some classic '80s movie nudity because you got to have some topless in any '80s movie that's rated R. We get a little bit of that, but there's really no other point to this scene. I guess it's just driving home again that, you know, if nothing else, Wesley is a terrible neighbor. He is not—.

Nic

He's an annoying neighbor. Yeah, and this is quiet farm country until Wesley with his big city ideas comes in and starts making it rowdy. And his jacuzzi, the goddamn jacuzzi. Like, we get, uh, we get kind of like a boring visit from the server Carrie-Anne, who's there to— yeah, and she's obviously like, I mean, you know, everyone who sees Dalton, he's legendary. But then, you know, he's walking around with his clothes off and everything, she's just like, she bought him a very greasy breakfast sandwich and a coffee.

Steve

You know, she doesn't want the sandwich, she just wants the black coffee. But I will say, like, we do get a lot of Patrick Swayze butt in this movie, so if you're down with Patrick Swayze butt, there's plenty of it.

Nic

It's a great place for it.

Steve

There is a little bit of Kelly Lynch butt later, which kind of balances things out a little bit. But yeah, like, uh, a lot of that going on. And yeah, Carrie-Anne is like— she basically swoons. And the way that she looks at him reminded me of— do you remember that Saturday Night Live sketch, uh, Schmitz Gay, that was Adam Sandler and Chris Farley? And the way they go, whoa, like lift their sunglasses up. Like, she's looking at him just like that. Just amazing.

Nic

She couldn't handle it. Yeah, I mean, if he did like brush her knee by accident, she, she would lose it. I don't know if she'd know what to do. Yeah, absolutely. There would be a pool party. Um, so we get it, we get a Brad Wesley action here, and he's driving in a very sick, like, red Mustang 5.0 convertible, and it's like, life is but a dream, like playing this, you know, old-timey music, and he is swerving like all through the lanes. He's the only car on the road, but he is swerving around like an asshole. Yep. And as Dalton, you know, Dalton's driving by and almost hits him, like Wesley's not trying to get out of his way. So it's a good demonstration of like How do we say this guy owns the town without having a character say this guy owns the town?

Steve

We need to take a second because at this point we've now had 3 separate moments with Brad Wesley, and I want to recap everything we know about him so far. Let's Wes it up. He arrives at his palatial estate in a helicopter that scares a bunch of horses. Yep. He throws a pool party in the middle of the night, and he drives all over both sides of the road. That's it. That's all we know about— about— Hell of a guy. Brad Wesley at this point. But it's like, they're just doing all these little things. Like you said, you don't want to tell people, oh, this is the evil guy that like runs the town. We need to like show it, you know, which I do appreciate. It's a movie. It's a show, not tell medium, but also it's a little like ham-fisted.

Nic

And, you know, also he's always wearing one of those like Panama hats. Yeah. Which is always a bad guy hat.

Steve

Yeah. I'm trying to think of a—.

Nic

Panama, like, yeah, exactly. It's the drug dealer that James Bond has to foil or whatever. Yeah.

Steve

I'm pretty sure Goldfinger wears one at some point. Yeah. Yeah.

Nic

It's another bad guy trait for good old Brad Wesley. Um, so Emmett— there's a quick scene where Emmett like discovers Dalton's Benz like hiding under here, realizes, oh, this guy isn't all he's cracked up to be. He looks outside and sees Dalton doing a lot of like oiled-up shirtless tai chi out by the riverbank.

Steve

Yeah, before that though, we actually go— but Dalton goes to Red's Auto Shop. We meet Red. Oh yeah, who runs the auto parts store in town. Um, Dalton needs, you know, a new antenna and I think it's something else or whatever that he needs to order. To start repairing parts of his car that have been destroyed. And I think it's either like as Dalton leaves or after Dalton leaves, Brad shows up. We get a little more Brad Wesley with Jimmy. And this is the first time we're seeing his like right-hand man, Jimmy, who for a second I thought was the— I don't know if you ever watched the show Billions, but there's this like therapist guy who's like this Zen or sort of like Japanese-inspired samurai guy who's like a performance coach. And I thought for sure, I'm like, is that the same guy? But the timing doesn't work out. The guy would have been much older and it's not him, but he looks a lot like him. Uh, and Jimmy is, you know, just a badass. We're just clear where it's—.

Nic

He's a bad— now this is a classic, like, square-jawed '80s asshole-looking guy with an actual mullet, like much more than Dalton.

Steve

Very much a real mullet.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, he'd, he'd have a place on any, like, hockey team of that era. The Vandals sang about him. And, and he has, like, the rage of that '80s guy who's like, I should have been Joe Piscopo's stunt double, but Joe Piscopo didn't need a stunt double, and now I'm just a henchman, and it sucks. Uh, but yeah, Jimmy, very intimidating. He's a guy who will come do karate on your whole store if you don't pay up. Yeah. And so they're extorting like, you know, 10% of everyone's money or whatever.

Steve

Which again, we should pause for just a second and recognize that Brad Wesley apparently got rich by keeping— by having a protection racket on the town of Jasper, Missouri. So apparently taking 10% of everything earned by literally every business in town. I'm still imagining that's like maybe $1,000 a month. Like, why? Why is this something that makes him rich?

Nic

Like, yeah, I don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense. He's got to be skimming off. There has to be some— or, you know, maybe Brad Wesley inherited all this money, but he has a story to make it sound like he's earning it. And his idea was, hey, I take 10% of it. Because yeah, he's not making helicopter money taking 10% of a fucking auto parts store.

Steve

Yeah, no, it's not. It's very interesting. So then we get the part where, yeah, we're like, Red finds the, uh, or not Red, uh, Emmett finds the Mercedes and like sees, uh, Dalton out there doing tai chi. And I gotta be honest with you, the way Emmett looks at Dalton doing tai chi is exactly the way Carrie-Anne looked at Dalton's butt when he was naked.

Nic

Like, there is a lust in this And the way Tillman looks at Dalton when he does a good job, I think he's that, uh, you know, he's just the guy everyone's falling in love with him.

Steve

It's basically Dalton is responsible for bringing pansexuality to Jasper, Missouri. That's like, he is literally the guy for everyone. Doesn't even matter. All the latency is coming out.

Nic

Oh my God. Yeah, so now Dalton's back at the Double Deuce, and in the office he sees that this bartender that he had he had fired, right, is back. And he's like, I'll be working here again. And it turns out he is Brad Wesley's nephew. Yes. And he's got a couple of the henchmen with him, one really tall, like almost 7-foot guy. Crazy. And then one perfect— they did a great job of like, all right, we don't want people to have to remember faces, so we got, we got tall guy, we got very fat guy, we got, you know, normal-ish guy.

Steve

Yeah, sunglasses guy. That's true.

Nic

It's like ice hockey on Nintendo. They have the different body types that you could choose from. Uh, so this quickly turns into a fight because Dalton's like, oh, you can't hire this guy back, he's stealing you. And, uh, and this guy pulls out an insane, like, Rambo knife. Yeah, combat knife.

Steve

Enormous. It's like, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it looks like something out of Predator, like it's a half machete.

Nic

Yeah, it's huge. So, you know, we get people getting chucked through windows and some more fights, and Dalton, uh, was stabbed again. Yeah, and this is not a self-surgery situation. He's got to go to the hospital.

Steve

He's slashed pretty badly, like, along his ribs, sort of. Yeah, that's going to be a difficult place to reach because you're only going to have, like, one hand. And it looks like too It was like on his right side. He's probably, I think he's right-handed based on how he sewed up, you know, his left arm, whatever. And so I could see where it's like, yeah, he's not gonna try to tackle it himself. So he's bleeding all over everything, but does decide to go to the hospital. And this is where we meet the love interest of the movie, Dr. Elizabeth Clay, played by Kelly Lynch. She's the one who comes in to help him. He literally carries his like HIPAA, you know, like medical records around with him everywhere because, you know, it comes in handy, he says, like that's the thing. And, you know, she's like, she makes a comment about, about, uh, oh, that's a pretty good job on that scar, you know, or whatever. Like, there's the recent arm scar. The gun— she goes, thank you. And she goes, you did that yourself? He's like, yeah. And then she offers him pain medication. He goes, it's gonna hurt. And he goes, pain don't hurt. And it's like, this is— to me, like, I love this line, but it also always is like, God, this is such a second-tier line to Jesse Ventura in Predator saying, I ain't got time to bleed. Yeah. Like, that's such a better way of basically saying the same thing, you know what I mean? And that's just the screenwriters, I think, the skill there, you know.

Nic

The doctor— Dalton makes a comment that he works at the Double Deuce, and the doctor says, oh, that place sends me a lot of business.

Steve

All those eyeballs get swept up.

Nic

And then of course she gives him the, I thought you'd be bigger, before you leave. So we haven't mentioned a trope throughout the film.

Steve

Tillman said it for sure. I think Carrie-Anne said it to him. Now Dr. Clay has said it to him. So yeah, several people over the course of the movie say, I thought you'd be bigger. Sam Elliott's character Wade Garrett even makes a joke about Oh, but you thought he'd be bigger, you know, kind of thing. Because he knows that people say that to him all the time.

Nic

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the legend, he's got to be bigger. Now we see one of my favorite—.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. Sorry, on the hospital thing, there is no world in which the MD is doing that sewing job or that stapling job. That is— there's just no way. That is a nurse is doing that job. Like, male or female, I don't care. But like, there's just no way the doctor— the doctor would come in, check you, go, yep, you need staples. Maybe here's a prescription for pain meds and I'm gone. Like, there's no way the doctor— when a nurse was in there, like, prepping the area or whatever, ever.

Nic

Somebody that hot though, let's say the doctor's not busy, she's like, I'd love a chance to stitch that boy.

Steve

She is single, he is age appropriate. Yeah, yeah, I mean, okay, all right, maybe. But yeah, normally no, no MD is doing that staple job.

Nic

Um, so we're back at Brad Wesley's place and, and up to his driveway pulls the most insane fucking monster truck. And this is not a lifted Ford F-350, this is a Bigfoot, like when you go to see Monster Jam monster truck.

Steve

It It makes Bigfoot look like a lifted 350. Like, it really is. When these guys hop out of it—.

Nic

The tires are 6 feet tall. Like, they're in diameter, probably.

Steve

Right. And when the guys hop out of it, I'm looking at it going, they're not taking steps down onto a ladder and then hopping down. They're jumping down from the actual floorboard. So how the hell are they getting up? Yeah. Because, I mean, do they have a rope ladder? Like, how does this work? It's crazy.

Nic

They parkour up the tire and the side of the truck. And stuff. Spider-Man action. Um, it's so funny, like, one of the details of the movie that I think pushes it, yes, like, towards greatness for me is just like, there was no reason to do that, and someone was just like, but what if we got a monster truck? Because it comes into play, it comes into play big time later. But yes, it wasn't like, it's not necessarily the plot. There's other things you could do. We saw, you know, um, so Brad Wesley is making his henchmen apologize basically because, well, you're supposed to get my nephew his job back. Like, he he's the weakling. Very casino-like, where there's the guy's— the gaming commissioner's nephew that works at the casino and he's a fuck-up, or sort of Fredo.

Steve

Like, this is the Fredo of the family.

Nic

Totally. And Brad Wesley, you know, is kind of, who's gonna apologize to me? And one guy says sorry, and he's like, okay, well, I believe you. And then the other guy— so he's like smacking a guy around and punching him in the face.

Steve

This is when he's like, you know, I don't like you, O'Connor, you're a bleeder. Yeah, you bleed too easy. And he's like punching him.

Nic

And again, this is really not believable with him as a tough guy. Although it's just like, well, because I have control of my other bodyguards is why I can beat anyone up, because no one's allowed to strike back. So exactly, it's good for you.

Steve

It's the boss thing again. Don Herrera in Commando, it's the wussy boss that's got the henchmen, that therefore he's untouchable, or yeah, you know, feels like he is. But like, really? Or Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop, like all these sort of like big boss guys of the era a lot of times are sort of wimps, and they're just like, you know, as in a stark contrast with, uh, uh, Hans Gruber in Die Hard, who's actually a badass, right?

Nic

Like, you know, fight and shoot stuff. Yes, exactly.

Steve

He'll take it, you know, actual matters into his own hands. Yeah, these guys, they just got their henchmen to do everything for them.

Nic

Uh, so Dalton, now I think he goes into Red's, uh, auto parts store to find it all kind of fucked up, right? There's stuff everywhere. And Red, you know, has a beef with Brad Wesley. Obviously, uh, he hates that Brad Wesley makes him stock monster truck tires, which take up like the entire back room of his store. Uh, he, he tells, he tells Dalton that Brad Wesley has this thing called the Jasper Improvement Society. Yeah, where they— that's how they extort the businesses. So that's like, we're taking a percent off the top, and it's a fuck-you-pay-me type situation. And masquerading as a Chamber of Commerce kind of idea.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. Why is Dalton wearing a karate gi tucked into his jeans in the scene? That is an interesting choice, but that shirt is ridiculous looking.

Nic

You know what I would love in this film is like a walk— first of all, a walk around the finished hayloft that he lives in, but I want to pan to his closet to see what is he choosing from. Like, what are his options every day? Because it is wild as shit, the stuff that he has.

Steve

This gi shirt does come back later in the movie, but like, I don't think we see the white linen pants that we saw at the beginning again. Like, I think it's a lot of jeans. Yeah, for the most part. You know, maybe that's because he was in like Miami or LA or somewhere cosmopolitan, and now he's in Jasper, Missouri, so it's a blue jeans kind of place.

Nic

Maybe that's his, uh, blue collar wardrobe.

Steve

Still doesn't explain the gi.

Nic

Uh, we kind of flash over to our buddy Sam Elliott.

Steve

Oh, I love Wade Garrett.

Nic

Wade Garrett, so cool. Goddamn, it is really great to see him. And it's Sam Elliott, like, it shows what a good actor he is because he is not relying on his mustache.

Steve

Yeah, great beard on Sam Elliott, even though it's that scruffy kind of thing. It just works for him. The long hair, like Like, Sam Elliott has never looked cooler in this movie, and yet whenever else he's looked awesome, it's very different. Like in Tombstone or Big Lebowski, where he also looks cool, it's a very different kind of cool. This is like rough-and-tumble Sam Elliott.

Nic

Yeah, it's a really good Sam Elliott. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, he's working at some kind of strip club that's like, um, patronized by military guys, and he's keeping the troops like off the titties and doing a good job, and it seems like everyone likes him. But is that lucrative? Like, if you're the best, is that your job? It's not a strip club, I don't think.

Steve

So it's It's interesting 'cause there's a big banner up that says wet t-shirt contest.

Nic

Oh, that's what it was. Right?

Steve

But the wet t-shirt contest part is crossed out and then written in like pen or something. It says G-string contest. So it's like they were gonna do a wet t-shirt contest but decided, yeah, let's just skip that part and just have topless women in G-strings up here that guys can like vote on or whatever. They all had little like numbers attached to their G-strings to like, you know, that's their contestant number or whatever. But yeah, a couple of like army guys try to get up onto the stage and he's gotta calm 'em down. But apparently that's how Wade Garrett improves a place is by turning the wet t-shirt contest into the G-string contest.

Nic

Upgrade from Garrett's perspective. Wade's got a lot of good ideas for us, but he knows about Dalton and Jasper.

Steve

I heard you're up there in Jasper, and it's like, why? How?

Nic

So yeah, this is a good side movie, is like when these people are all off work and they're having conversations and finding out about famous coolers and what they look like and stuff.

Steve

Like, when does that happen? Yeah, I mean, look, pre-internet, post-carrier pigeon. So what the fuck is going on? Like, what kind of like hotline are these people dialing into to figure out what's going on? I don't know, man.

Nic

Uh, so the, the blonde kind of bimbo looking girl is really like up on Dalton. Her name's Denise, Denise, I think.

Steve

Do we know yet? But she's, she's Brad's girlfriend, but I don't think we know that yet.

Nic

But yeah, yeah, because Brad hasn't— he's not been in the double dudes. That's right, not yet. That's right. So, uh, so Brad's henchmen show up to the bar, and I think they're there to like get her because, oh, she's been spending too much time, we don't want her near this guy, or just to rough— I think you have to rough Yeah, the assholes. And Dalton, with his amazing like super bouncer vision, immediately clocks one guy has like a blade sticking out of the toe of his boot, and he's just like, right boot, and points to a guy who's been training for 3 and a half days. And the guy's like, got it. They have this like Secret Service level of like discipline.

Steve

Well, and also like that particular bouncer guy is 150 pounds overweight. I'm not really sure I'm sending that guy against the guy with the boot knife. Maybe somebody a little more agile who's a little bit of a smaller target might be a better choice. Choice for knife boot guy.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot to kick with that guy. Yep, uh, big fight. But again, another big melee, uh, they take him down. Tillman, ultra creepy satisfied look, maybe one of his creepiest of the film. Uh, but it's crazy, like, this, uh, Dalton has turned this ragtag bunch of shitty bouncers into a world-class wrecking crew. And now we have classier people coming to the bar. Even the hot doctor shows up. Elizabeth That's right. Who I just wrote hot doctor. Like I told you before, I— this character stinks. I get nothing from her.

Steve

She's not, not interesting enough. She has a weird moral compass that comes in later where it's like, you know, self-defense doesn't matter to her apparently. Like, but one of the things that's happening here is I think this is maybe the first scene or maybe it's the second, but like every so often this portion of the movie, every time we go to the Double Deuce, it looks a little nicer. There's been some upgrade. There's been like new neon signs or they took the chicken wire off of the stage and like upgraded this. So when Tillman said, oh, I came into some money and I want to like spruce the place up, he's actually doing that. And the place is looking like kind of nicer and nicer and less like a honky-tonk. There's no more sawdust on the floor. Yep. You know, stuff like that. So this is when we really start seeing that there's some improvements to the location itself. Yeah.

Nic

And of course Dalton's car was destroyed once again. Yes. And this time has like a full stop sign just jammed through the window sticking out of the— Exactly. The passenger side window. Wesley, Brad Wesley wants to see Dalton. Yes. And, uh, and he gets, you know, his men come to pick up Dalton, goes to Wesley's house. Wesley's house is fucking crazy. We have seen some crazy dwellings. Yes. Uh, in recent films, it's really, it's really nice. Wesley has this room that's this huge, like, open room, and there are two pool tables, right? And just animal heads everywhere. Heads and bodies of animals. Like, the entire house is full of, like, trophies from his—.

Steve

He calls it his trophy room, but it's actually an entire floor of the home. Like, it's enormous. This. Also, when Dalton first shows up here, we see Denise, Brad's girlfriend who came to the bar with her. She's doing like a Jazzercise sort of workout or whatever, but she's also been completely hammered up. Like, she got a black eye, her neck is all bruised up like she's been choked. Like, she is all fucked up. And so Dalton goes to talk to Wesley, and before he can, Brad's got to yell at Denise like, turn that shit off! Like, the music. Yeah, it's got no soul. I can't listen to that. Whatever. This is when Brad makes the most ridiculous I'm a big man speech of any movie ever. And you may have all of it, but the important part— I don't have all of it, but the important part is that JCPenney is coming here because of me. Ask anyone and they'll tell you. Whoa, man. JC fucking— not, not Mervyn's. JCPenney, dude. Oh, not Emporium Capwell. Yeah, not, not, not, no, not Montgomery Ward. JCPenney.

Nic

Oh, so all the people in town won't have to drive so far to buy M&M sweatshirts. What the fuck? Yeah, that's the funniest thing because it's like you have a heli— you had me at helicopter. You had me at like, you don't have to fucking talk about the— he talks about the 7-Eleven. There wouldn't be a Wetzel's Pretzels if it weren't for me. There wouldn't be an Orange Julius if it weren't for me.

Steve

Go ask Auntie Anne, it's all because of me. So he's just great.

Nic

Uh, yeah, so Wesley is just this big mogul and, you know, he makes everything happen in town. Yes, exactly. And, uh, and one thing that he discloses to Dalton, because he, he doesn't expect to woo him with his charm or with money or whatever, he has information against Dalton. He knows that Dalton killed a man in Memphis, so he kind of discloses that to Dalton at that point.

Steve

And he says to Dalton, like, you know, like, this case was dismissed or whatever off of self-defense, he says, but you and I both know that's not true. Which is kind of like, not really. It sounds like he got a gun pulled on him and he, and he defended himself, because later he and Wade talk about it and it's like like, yeah, it was defense, it was self-defense. He had a gun pulled on him, he defended himself. Like, what is he supposed to do? Yeah, let himself get shot? That's like— I don't think that's required by the law. No. Um, but yeah, so, but there's a little— there's definitely the thing. And then Dalton basically tells Wesley to fuck himself.

Nic

Yeah, so Wesley says like, how much to work for you? And Dalton's like, no amount of money. So, um, yeah, so we've got— we've got the double deuce getting nicer. Um, at this point we see somebody who made me very excited. Okay, but just, you know, not in it much. We see Keith David. Oh, that's right, working as a bartender. Yeah. And all he says is, I think we're out of whiskey. Like, he has no lines in this movie. So Keith David, very brief.

Steve

And you know what's funny is I remember seeing Keith David in the credits. Yeah. When the movie started, and then realized I never once noticed where he was.

Nic

Okay, so very brief here. He's one of the bartenders at the Double Deuce. Nice. Now I looked into this because I was like astonished. Like, this isn't Keith David too early, too late. Keith David prime— I'm sorry— yeah, has been going on since The Thing and continues to this day. Absolutely. And I was like, well, what happened in this? Because he is early in the credits at the beginning of the film. And I looked it up and I found some guy who had written out, you know, like a theory, or like what he'd heard buzz of, or whatever that makes sense to me, is that originally Keith David's character was supposed to be bigger, and a lot of it ended up getting cut out. Out. It might have been something where the owner, where Tillman, was like, I'm gonna hire the best cooler, and then I'm gonna hire the best bartender, and Keith David's like the best bartender guy. I would have loved Keith David and Swayze hanging out in this movie more than Swayze having like a love interest with the doctor. I think it would have been way more interesting for Sam Elliott, Keith David, and Swayze running the fucking bar, and then Tillman just jacked up in his little office.

Steve

It would be so turgid at that point. He would be hard as a rock. But yeah, like, definitely, yeah, I'm with you, man.

Nic

That— to tease you with Keith David, it's like this just had like a LaCroix essence of Keith David, and I want a full can of Kern's Keith David nectar, you know?

Steve

It's like somebody whispered, "How'd you get the frank about the beans?" from off screen, and that's how we know Keith David was around. Yeah. And then I, I wrote, uh, uh, oh no, so yeah, so then we get the doc shows back up and basically we're He wants to take Dalton out. They drive off to his place and whatever, and it's time to do the bone zone between the two of them. But they, he's stalking her around his apartment. Like, it's kind of crazy. Like, you know, it's not like she doesn't, I mean, she seems interested, but she also doesn't seem fully on board. Like, I'm not saying he took advantage of her, but I am saying she appeared to have needed to be convinced to, you know, let him enter her, which is gross. But like, this is exactly the kind of fucking scene it is. It's not sexy. It's not, there's no love. There's no, There's barely any lust. It's just like, well, I'm a man, you're a woman, we're standing in the same room, let's fuck. And it's like, okay, I guess 1989, I guess. Like, what the fuck?

Nic

And it was kind of long. Like, it wasn't like I wrote here, like the long humping scene could have been more Keith David. Like, it really just, it should have been Keith David.

Steve

Not in that scene, but just instead of.

Nic

Actually, if that scene, you know what, if there was a scene of just Keith David watching that happen, I would watch just Keith David.

Steve

Well, speaking of watching it happen, after they bang up against a cobblestone wall, by the way, which must have felt great on the doctor's back. Uh, Brad Wesley is just across the fucking riverway, like, watching them bang out on the little, like, like, awning or whatever they do out. They do us bang a second time out there. He's just watching, and like, it doesn't— it doesn't look like innocent.

Nic

If I was Dalton, I would do all my shit on the other side of the house. Yeah, like, out of Wesley's viewpoint.

Steve

It's just, you don't need to be— you don't need to be attracting that kind of attention.

Nic

Um, and, and the, um— so Dalton is talking to the guitar, so So the house band at the Double Deuce has been this great blues rock band with a blind slide guitar player who's named Jeff Healey. He's a well-known musician in that circle. He's good in this. I like him in this movie. And he's kind of someone who's known Dalton for a while too. So he might have come on as part of this best cooler, let's get a new band, unless they were already the house band.

Steve

I think he was already there. The character's name is Cody. And when Dalton first arrives, he says hi to the bandmates. And they kind of are like— but he's like, you know, shh. And he kind of sneaks up on Cody and is like, oh, man. And Cody's telling him, "This place is worse than the place we were at together in," like, I don't know if he says Memphis or another city or whatever, or no, outside of when we were at that place, we were out in Ohio. "This place is even worse than that." Dayton, I think he says. And so it's clear that like they've just crossed paths before. Like apparently Cody's band is a traveling bar band that does like, you know, residencies in little tiny honky-tonks around the Midwest. And Dalton has done his fair share of cooling, like in the same area.

Nic

Maybe he's the one who told about Dalton being a cooler. That's a good point, actually. It could have come from him. That does work.

Steve

Doesn't explain why Wade knows everything too. No, but it does at least make sense why Tillman might know. Yeah, that's true.

Nic

Uh, and so he, he knows a lot of stuff, and he's buds with Dalton. And what he says is that Brad Wesley used to be in love with Elizabeth. That's right. So he's kind of like, watch out, dropping that. Yeah. Um, this is when Wade arrives, I believe.

Steve

Yes, yes, Wade Garrett arrives. Right before Wade arrives though, uh, there's a delivery of booze to the back, uh, to the back of the Double Deuce. And so Dalton goes back there to help unload it, and a bunch of Brad Wesley's men show up to like interrupt that, disrupt it. You know, they start beating up on both Dalton and the one other staff member who's out there trying to unload some and destroying, you know, cases full of liquor, like throwing them off the thing just to try to like fuck it all up. And that's when Wade comes back, and Dalton's being held up by one of the guys like against a post or whatever and just being wailed on. And that's when Garrett comes out and like, you know, starts his own sort of— gets involved and starts fighting. And the two of them are doing their karate and doing all their stuff, and it's Fantastic.

Nic

It's just a lot of fun. There's so much good karate in this. And, uh, Wade's— his like casual approach when he comes out and he sees Dalton just getting pinned down and beaten up, and he's like, you okay there, mijo? Like, he just—.

Steve

He calls him mijo all the time.

Nic

He just, uh, yeah. So it's great to see the boys team up. I mean, it really like pro wrestling energy of seeing like the team of underdogs— we're getting beat up. Oh no, now we're not getting beat Yeah, uh, very enjoyable.

Steve

So this is absolutely like, you know, like Hulk Hogan fighting against Randy Macho Man Savage, and then the Ultimate Warrior comes out and you're like, oh no, Hogan's in trouble now. Like, exactly.

Nic

Um, so Dalton and Wade, they got some catching up to do, and there's a little bros night out. But Dalton says first, hey, I wanna— I want you to meet someone. Yeah. And they pick up Elizabeth from the hospital and they go out and they're out drinking all night.

Steve

And, uh, and this is when we see more time— this is when we see more of Sam Elliott than I ever needed to to. He shows her a scar he's particularly proud of and basically flashes full-on pubes at us. And she says, oh, is that from a woman? And he goes, like, it was with her high heel or something like that. And it's like, oh my God. Then they go to a diner.

Nic

His pube mustache. I gotta show one of them.

Steve

He— they go to a diner and they're hanging out and he and Elizabeth are dancing to the jukebox. But I'm like, who dances in a diner? This is weird, man.

Nic

It's such a movie thing, slow dancing to the jukebox. And right over their shoulders the entire time— and I talked about this in the Fast Times at Ridgemont High episode I love— we love Jeff Spicoli's Colt.45 t-shirt. The Colt.45 neon sign that's behind them during the slow dance is absolutely chef's kiss. I love it.

Steve

It's also in The Double Deuce. That exact same Colt.45 neon sign is in The Double Deuce after it's been upgraded a few times. So I don't know if it's like at this point in the movie, I think we'd seen it once, but you see it a little more later.

Nic

It's like the same style.

Steve

Okay, props department, big deal, big deal on the Colt.45. Um, but yeah, and so now— and then so they, they hang out for a while and Elizabeth's got to go to work in a few hours, which is like, yeah, you're a fucking doctor stapling people's wounds shut, you probably should get some sleep. Um, but they go— the next scene, we're back at the Deuce. Um, but Red's place is like on fire. People start running in like, oh, there's a fire, there's a fire! And a full-on— like, first of all, Dalton sprints towards the fire. The fire department's there, the firefighters are there, but he is sprinting towards the building that's on fire until it actually— something inside, because of course there's a bunch of probably fuel and different stuff that's very, very flammable— explodes. Uh, and luckily we see Red was not there. Red drives up in his truck and is okay. Okay, but yeah, it's a little bit like, what were you gonna do? Like, why, you know, running into a burning building is not a good idea even if you think you're a hero.

Nic

He— yeah, he went in without thinking of anything. It was nice. He was very nimble, like coming through the steps. He was almost like parkouring his way in there. I, I like some, uh, Dalton heroism there. Yeah. Um, so let's see, we are, uh, we get a striptease from Denise next. Okay, right. Yeah, so, so Brad Wesley and Denise niece are at the Double Deuce, and they're kind of just like, hey, you know, he's being the big man there even though it's not his place. He's acting like it's his place. And she gets up on stage with the band. Very good striptease scene. I enjoy this scene. She looks fantastic. And of course Dalton's like, oh no, you can't do this, you can't do this, we don't have that kind of license. Yeah, uh, so this is the time for the showdown between Dalton and the other bartenders and Jimmy. Yeah, uh, who's our previous mulleted, uh, shithead and he comes out, he's got a shark tooth necklace and a Canadian tuxedo on, and he grabs a pool cue and he starts doing all this Donatello shit to show off. I love a scene where the guy has to like show off all his little weapon tricks first before engaging.

Steve

Napoleon Dynamite level bo staff skills, like that's like really impressive, really just fantastic. But yeah, so but then they sort of fight, he's knocking out the guy's stat— you know, you know, you can jam them in the gut, you can smack him in the face. That's the great thing about like a long stick you're fighting with, um, Brad's men basically just fuck up the entire place. Like, the whole place just gets absolutely messed up yet again. Um, and then Jimmy and Wade start really fighting. I mean, that's the way Wade sort of steps in, and the two of them— it's a good fight between Jimmy and Wade.

Nic

Yeah, no, I like seeing Sam Elliott like really getting his hands dirty. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And the thing about fighting someone with a long stick is you got to be careful because if you break it in half, it can become two deadlier weapons.

Steve

That's right. Much, much more agile.

Nic

Um, so this— we don't really get the, the conclusion of this fight because Brad Wesley shoots his gun in the air. That's enough.

Steve

Yeah, but not, not until after Jimmy tells Dalton, "Your ass is mine, boy," which comes back later. A lot of homoeroticism. Jimmy is— yeah, Jimmy, Jimmy's got—.

Nic

He might be watching the tai chi with binoculars. Oh, hell yeah, he's peeping.

Steve

Um, but yeah, then we, uh, I think the next thing we get, we go to Red's house and we actually— we have Dalton visiting Red at his home because it's, of course, Dalton Red's place is blown up and, you know, he's like, are you gonna rebuild? Or he's like, nah, man, fuck this thing, I'm not gonna even bother, you know, rebuilding or whatever, this is crazy. But the kind of key of this scene is that Dalton notices a picture of Dr. Clay, Elizabeth, on Red's wall or on the mantle, something like that. So he now sees there's a connection, uh, between Elizabeth and Red that he'll later, uh, check into. Yeah, um, nothing really else important in that scene, but, but there's some of the other townsfolks who are there kind of helping Red.

Nic

So we see like the car dealer ownership dealership. And, you know, some of those, uh, people in Emmett and these people are just kind of like coming around.

Steve

Well, and it's sort of starting to talk about, yeah, like, we should be fighting back against Wesley. Yeah, this is getting out of hand, you know, and everything.

Nic

And Red's very resigned, like, fuck this, man. Like, I don't have anything left. Yeah, exactly. I'm not fighting back.

Steve

And then we cut, because we just met the Ford dealer guy— I don't know his last name, they say it— but we cut to his dealership the next day, and there's a shit ton of people at this car dealership. One thing I'm not really sure why there are so many people at a car dealership outside of like a grand opening, but that's not what it is. But Wesley and his men are there with the monster truck and full-on just drive right through the showroom, destroying the glass walls, crushing cars, like all station wagons.

Nic

God, yeah, he flattens a ton of station wagons, dude. It was very satisfying. I mean, I, uh, I love a monster truck crushing stuff. It's very nice. Monster Jam. Um, so, uh, Uh, yeah, so that's, that's happening. Wade is kind of like, he's done. Like, he's ready to move on and leave town.

Steve

Yeah, Wade's like, this was a nice season, I'm out of here. Exactly. But like, I just real quick, I was going to about the car dealership thing. Like, there's a bunch of people who are like, oh no, like the townspeople. But then all of Brad West's guys are cheering like they just won a soccer match. Like, it is really wild. And also the number of just shitty, crappy looking gas station aviator glasses in this movie. Like, in this scene in particular everybody from Swayze to Jimmy to the O'Connor, the big guy, like they're all wearing just awful sunglasses that look terrible and look cheap as hell. I always thought that was kind of strange. Um, but yeah, yeah.

Nic

Um, so Wade, Wade is leaving town. Yeah, he's done with this.

Steve

He's coming to Dalton's place. Yeah, yeah, he's like, there's too much for us, me.

Nic

Oh, and Dalton's pissed, and Dalton's doing like— he has all this kind of like homemade boxing gym equipment that he's strung up. Rocky IV in Siberia, baby. He is Rocky IV in nice weather here. And so Dalton's pissed off, and then we see that Emmett's house—.

Steve

Yeah, explodes. Yep. But yeah, because they— well, the doctor— I think Wade left, but the doc arrived, I think is exactly what happened. Yeah, because then— yeah, that's it. Literally blows up, and they go in there, and, and, well, it's caught— catches— they hear an explosion sort of thing. The house is not blown up yet, it's just on fire. He's able to rush in and get Emmett.

Nic

This is where Dalton runs in again, shirtless, into a fire.

Steve

Emmett's wearing the, like, you know, red Santa Claus Claus pajamas or whatever, the like long johns, uh, like, like the adult onesies. Uh, but yeah, like, he is able to drag him out, and Emmett's okay, thank God. Like, I always feel like they could have killed Emmett here. Yeah, right, really, they could have, and they don't. And I'm like, I think that's actually better. I'm glad they didn't kill Emmett, but like, that could have worked. But this is just, you know— and then this is the thing I thought, we see Jimmy— well, so first of all, if they were trying to get to Dalton, like, I can't tell if this is still— if this is like the car dealership thing where they want to fuck with Emmett in particular because he wants to stand up against Wesley, or if they're going for Dalton, trying to get him by hurting Emmett. Yeah, the people he cares about. Because if that were the case, why don't they just blow up Dalton's barn? He was able to blow up the house like 200 feet away. Why don't you just blow up the barn and take Dalton out? Your problems would be over if you're Brad Wesley. But regardless, we see Jimmy on a four-wheeler sort of like driving away from the back of Emmett's house where he clearly placed whatever bomb went off.

Nic

Oh, Jimmy's not on a four-wheeler.

Steve

What is he on? Jimmy is on a dirt bike.

Nic

Oh, it's a dirt bike. Vehicle of crime. I got, I got the three-wheeler. Brad Wesley with the three-wheeler, that thing is sick. And didn't we talk in an earlier episode about rich people just love to drive around on little vehicles? Brad Wesley, golf carts, to do it, dude.

Steve

Four-wheelers, three-wheelers, absolutely. But this is— so then Dalton sees like the way Jimmy's coming, he has to drive sort of past where they are. Yeah. And so Dalton's able to do this flying dive and just tackle Jimmy off the dirt bike.

Nic

Pro Bowl special teamer level angle that he took there. That was unbelievable.

Steve

Yeah, that— yeah, he was intercepting that route like nobody did.

Nic

So good. We get a dirt bike tackle and then they both pop up and have a very spin kick forward fight. There's so much— so many spin kicks, which they are.

Steve

I mean, look, I've played Street Fighter 2. That's the heavy button. Yeah, the spin kick is the heavy button. So that's like the harder kick. We all know that.

Nic

It is, it is. Uh, we get Jimmy, uh, you know, at certain points of the fight, the, the advantage is shifting back and forth. And Jimmy, one of the things he says to Dalton is is, uh, I used to fuck guys like you in prison. Which— brag? I mean, look, is that a boast?

Steve

I think it must be. Clearly Jimmy feels it is.

Nic

Well, everyone in town loves him, so maybe he's like, hey, everyone in town said that you would be the number one guy to fuck, and I in fact used to fuck guys like you, so that makes me cool.

Steve

Actually, I guess it is an odd fucking thing to say. And, and combined with the your ass is mine boy from earlier, it's like, I mean, Jimmy just wants to have sex with all of them, clearly. And look, there's nothing wrong with that outside of you shouldn't probably be beating up the person you want to have sex with. You probably should be wining and dining them, you know.

Nic

But that's why Dalton's so greased up all the time, because people are always trying to hop on. He needs them to slide off of him. Um, so, you know, towards the end of this fight where it seems like, okay, I've won a fair fight or whatever, and Jimmy pulls out a gun and Dalton rips his damn throat out. Rips the throat straight. Beautiful throat rip. And then plops him into the river.

Steve

Yep. And this is when the doc runs up and Dalton's still holding flesh in his hand and has to like throw it to the ground. But like the doc notices, runs over, sees, and like, I love, you can see the like hole that's been ripped into Jimmy's throat. It looks awesome. But she is not okay with this.

Nic

She is so like put off by this. She's so angry about this. I even get her running to do like lifesaving care.

Steve

Oh yeah, yeah, she's a doctor. Hippocratic oath.

Nic

But how she also should have just been like, wah wah, oh well.

Steve

Yeah, dude blew up Emmett's house, fighting with Dalton, which I guess Dalton kind of started the fight. He tackled Jimmy. So Dalton starts the fight, but the fight is going back and forth. It is an even fight. Then he pulls a gun to kill Dalton, and Dalton defends himself and kills Jimmy. Like, I don't see why from a moral standpoint this needs to be something that Dalton should be like ashamed of or whatever. Like, I get that like legally you still— it's still manslaughter. Like, there's no— but it is self-defense. So like A lot of times that's all it takes for it not to be a legal matter. And why is the doctor so— especially for the person—.

Nic

If he shot him, it would have been fine. So she's more worried just about the methodology of the kill.

Steve

I guess. It's so weird. Maybe that's it. Maybe she's just— maybe that's it. She's been falling for him. So she's just got the ick from the fact that this is how he killed him. He didn't like snap his neck or shoot him or do— he ripped his throat. Like, and here's the thing, the throat is like not that big an area, I guess. You know, it's sort of like, like, I guess he's like, how do you even grip the esophagus?

Nic

Yeah, from outside. I want to know like what exactly is he holding. If we dissect what Dalton has in his hand at the end there, like what's that look like? It's pretty wild. Great classic scene. And like I said before, inspired MacGruber, one of my favorite movies of all time. The doctor is pissed. Um, so Dalton goes to the Double Deuce now, uh, and the phone rings and he picks it up immediately. It's Brad Wesley and he says either Wade or Elizabeth dies. Yep. Now, you know, you've killed my main protector guy. This guy, I bought him so many custom pool cues that I don't need now, so I'm gonna have to deal with that shit. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, so Dalton's gonna— he's gonna try to save some folks, right?

Steve

But before he can— well, so, so, so we hear— we know that Wesley like flips the coin, but we don't hear what it was. But he says, I'd love to tell you what it was, Dalton, but I gotta go, or whatever. Whatever. And so now Dalton's like, I don't know which one of them is in trouble, but one of them is. But that's when Wade shows up to the bar, right? And he's like been beat up, but he's also like clearly not dead. And so he stumbles in, but you know, like, and he's like, there were three of them, you know?

Nic

So exactly.

Steve

And Dalton's like, okay, this is enough. We're, we're leaving. Like, we're getting out of town, dude. No more of this. He wins. Like, Brad wins. We're gone. But just stay here. I gotta go get Elizabeth because now I know she's in danger because you were alive. So they're, they're obviously coming for her. "Just stay here, okay? Don't go anywhere. You know, have one beer, but don't like get drunk." Like, whatever, right? And so then he goes to— hold on a second. Does he go to—.

Nic

Oh yeah, he goes to the hospital. He's looking at X-rays. That's right.

Steve

He goes in there and it's like, "We're going. We gotta go. This is too dangerous." She's like, "I'm not going anywhere. Like, I live here. I have a medical practice here. Like, I'm not going anywhere with you throat ripper fuck off." Yeah, you just charmed me with your throat rip. So he, "Okay, then if she's gonna stay, then fuck it. I can't do anything about that. I'm gonna go." So he goes back to the dude juice. And that's when he sees Wade, like, ostensibly looking like he's asleep on the bar. Yeah, he's been stabbed in the chest. Yes, with a note that says, "It was tails." Yes, which, like, we don't know which one was tails. He didn't even say it was a coin toss. It's— well, no, he did say it was a coin toss. I'm gonna flip a coin. You can't tell us what— or you can't not tell us what it is, heads or tails, and then be expecting us to— yeah, it was tails. Like, I give a shit.

Nic

Um, but I do like a dead body with a note on it. Very— now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho. Yeah, the knife just jammed into him. And when Dalton pulled the knife out, man, he has this throat-ripping look in his eye. Well, he's also just struggling. He's like, yeah, so like his friend got killed, but he's also just like, oh, what am I gonna do to these fucking people?

Steve

I didn't get that vibe. I got that he was a guy who was never grossed out by anything— is, is, um, not even grossed out, but just like it's so visceral to have to pull a blade from your friend's corpse, that that has got him near tears. That's what it looked like to me. Not anger as much as like despair.

Nic

Well, he was already in like anger and vengeance mode. Well, that's true. So he was kind of like— but yeah, I mean, there's probably a lot of that shit because that's the only person that he seemed to have a real long-term relationship with.

Steve

Yeah, absolutely. This was— and, and a bit of a mentorship, so it's like a brother but also a father figure maybe. Like, definitely.

Nic

Yeah, like, um, so Dalton, he's— okay, I'm coming for— coming for Brad Wesley. Here we go, baby.

Steve

It's the final act of Thief all over again. Yeah.

Nic

Yes, dude, 100%. And, uh, we got Wesley's estate and Dalton's Mercedes is just full speed going at him, and they end up shooting it and it flips over and blows up. He's not in there. He had pushed— I know, forced the gas pedal down but then stuck the knife into it to pin it. I think the message—.

Steve

No, I think to pin it to the floorboard, like, because the knife through the gas, uh, pedal and into the floorboard to keep it down. To keep it down, I think is what it is. And it's the knife that that killed Wade. And one of the henchmen takes it kind of right and puts it into the sheath that clearly is for him.

Nic

So we know the guy that killed him. So great demonstration of Ghost Ride the Whip by Dalton there.

Steve

He really did a great Ghost Ride the Whip.

Nic

So now he's in the premises here, and this place is full of like animal carcasses and heads and like glass tables. So there's great stuff for guys to go crashing through. Yeah, absolutely. One of the henchmen the big fat guy in suspenders gets crushed by this like taxidermied polar bear. Dalton is like standing behind it going like, ooga booga booga. It's like the guy thought it was a real bear.

Steve

And it's very weird. And at first it looks like it kills him, which is like, that's amazing. But it really just knocks him out because he like comes to a little bit later. Dalton's body count in this movie is zero for so long, and then he kills Jimmy, and in the next 15 minutes kills kills like 7 or 8 more people.

Nic

Yeah, he takes out a lot of dudes. It's like really ramps up very fast. And it is surprising that the fat guy survives because, yeah, everyone else is, is getting capped and thrown off stuff and thrown through stuff. Um, Brad Wesley is coming after Dalton. They're in the trophy room. Yes. So it is insanely cluttered with animal heads and animal bodies, and then in the middle has this like white living room set that seems like it would belong in like, uh, Dana's apartment in Ghostbusters or something. Like, it didn't fit. Like, put a jungle pattern or leather or something. That— it was very odd. But Brad Wesley comes after Dalton, and Dalton's been injured a little bit, so not a fair fight. And he has a spear, and he goes to throw a spear at Dalton. Dalton dodges it, and the spear goes on a perfect line for like 200 feet.

Steve

It's clearly on a wire. Yeah, it looks so bad. Oh my God. So yeah, so they're fighting back and forth, and, uh, and, you know, basically they're able to, you know, it looks like Dalton kind of gets the upper hand, but then it's like Wesley's got another gun. So he's like pulling that until all of a sudden there's a whole bunch more people in the room. Emmett's there, Red is there. The guy who owns the car dealership is there. There might even have been another kind of townsperson, you know, whatever kind of thing, all these like business owners and they've all just got shotguns and they're all just blowing Brad Wesley away and just kind of, you know, taking their town back.

Nic

Very satisfying.

Steve

Very, very funny. And then when they come out, cops show up, um, that's when, uh— oh yeah, because Tillman's there as well. It's like, it's like all the crowd, right? But then the cops show up, or sheriff or whatever. It's like, what happened here? And everybody's like, I didn't see anything, I don't know. Like, there's like a dead body riddled with shotguns, and none of them are holding their guns. Red got rid of their guns. But like, still, there's just this— and then finally, the other henchman who wakes up under the polar bear, they ask him, what about you, you see anything?

Nic

He goes, no. Yeah, we put an end to, uh, to Brad Wesley's reign of terror because he owned the cops and everything too. He owns the sheriff. Yep. So, uh, yeah, good ending there. Oh my God. And then, uh, and then we just get kind of a little scene of the bar being a success. Yes, exactly.

Steve

And, and also, I believe, a little bit of Dalton and Elizabeth skinny dipping for some reason.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. But some of that—.

Steve

Complaining about it, but it's just an interesting little way to close the movie.

Nic

But we get a nice Jeff Healey closer, and there we are. And, and, uh, the Double Deuce has been saved and is now a viable business for the owner. There you go.

Steve

So, uh, yay business. And it's like, in a lot of ways, Dalton was the worst thing to ever happen to that town, but at least he somehow inspired them to get out from under the yoke of Brad Wesley. But like, really, like, the number of buildings just destroyed in that town— oh my God— after Dalton's arrival is pretty astronomical. Like, it's most of the town. Yeah, blown up.

Nic

They should call him the Dozer instead. Oh man, Roadhouse, man. So that is Roadhouse. Well, uh, this was my pick. I guess I'll I'll go first here. You know, this is kind of in the category of fun to talk about, think about, quote, yeah, the experience of watching every minute of this movie. It's not— because there's parts of it that kind of drag, and there's parts of it that are like, okay, not that well done. Like we said, you know, the director, we haven't heard much from that individual, so there's a reason for that. The reviews aren't that great, but Jesus Christ, this one is so much fun.

Steve

It is.

Nic

I really, really had a good time with this. I like the music. I like feeling like you're kind of in the bar for most of the movie, and that feels good. The love scene, like I said, or the love story, I didn't care about that part. And we could either cut it, or like we said, more Sam Elliott, more Keith David, more of just training the bouncers, you know, whatever kind of shit. But Dalton's a very memorable character, very funny lines by Swayze, and it gave us the The Throat Rip. Yeah. And some of the best hired goons, I think, that we've seen in the '80s. So I'm gonna go ahead and give Road House a solid 3.5. I think I probably love this more than a 3.5, but as a, as a review to give out, I think that's fair. I think that's the experience of watching it. But Jesus, this is a fun one. If you have not seen it, go out and enjoy it.

Steve

It's great. Yeah, I'm feeling very similar to you. It's actually funny, I've been thinking about my take on this movie, and I do love it. I know I've got like a nostalgia bump for it, but in reality, it's a pretty bad movie in a lot of ways. The plot's got part— a lot of parts of it don't make sense. And I think the worst of it, a lot of the premise doesn't make sense. And so when your premise doesn't make sense, the thing you're building off of has a lot of like plot holes in it, it makes it difficult to have anything other than a hole-filled plot all the way through. So that's not great, but it is a lot of fun. I have a ton of nostalgia for it. You know, it is a kind of a good popcorn flick in some ways. It does cross into the so bad it's good category for sure. Like, there are parts of it are so kind of like dumb and B-movie style that it works out and is— and makes it enjoyable. But even with the— like, I'm giving it the nostalgia bump, and that gets me at a 3 out of 5. Like, that's where I'm at with this movie. I think 6.5 out of 10 is more than generous for us on Road House. And yeah, that's how— that's where I'm gonna take it. And I think that was the final movie of the '80s for us for Two Dads, Two Decades.

Nic

Oh man, there's only two dads one decade left.

Steve

That's right, there isn't.

Nic

So we're gonna go to 1990. What are we doing, Steve?

Steve

All right, so when we first started this podcast, one of the earlier movies we did— not earliest, but one of the earlier movies we did was, um, The Secret of My Success. And when we did that movie, you made a comment, and you're absolutely right, that it was so funny to have a movie or a podcast about movies from the '80s and '90s and have the first Michael J. Fox film we do The Secret of My Success and not like Back to the Future or Teen Wolf or something like that, right? And Similarly, then the first Martin Scorsese picture we did was Cape Fear. Now, Cape Fear is a great movie, don't get me wrong, but it's not like it doesn't feel like essential Scorsese.

Nic

Exactly.

Steve

It's not like what Scorsese is known for. It's not one of his like most popular movies of the era, you know. And so I decided for 1990, you know, looking through the movies that came out that year when it was my turn, you know, I realized this was a year I was going to pick. When I saw this, this Scorsese picture come up, I'm like, well, we've got to do this movie at some point. We might as well do it. Now, really dive us into the world that Scorsese is famous for showing us, right? The mafia, you know, sort of like New York, the Italian Americans. Honestly, a lot of the Irish folks as well. That's been a theme throughout his mob movies the years. But, you know, if it's not obvious yet what I'm talking about, man, we're going to watch Goodfellas. We got Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, and Joe Pesci ready to show us the most crazy world of the '70s and '80s mobsters in New New York. I'm super excited about it.

Nic

Beautiful. I cannot wait. I love this one. Uh, this is going to be a great conversation.

Steve

Absolutely. So that's a wrap. If you like what you hear, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. We'd also love it if you followed us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky. @Twodads1movie. Once again, this has been Roadhouse, another episode of Two Dads, One Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week. Thanks, everyone.