Roadhouse 66

When "Roadhouse 66" first appeared on cable in Canada almost twenty-five years ago, I sat down to watch it, though about halfway through I quit watching it. I didn't remember why, however, so with it now available on DVD I decided to rent it and give it another try.

I did make it all the way through this time... but barely. It didn't take me long to figure out why I stopped watching it the first time. This is one BORING movie. Although it runs about an hour and a half, there is only about thirty minutes or so of plot. The rest of the time, nothing of consequence happens.

To make matters worse were the characters. Reinhold's character is the worst. His character is incredibly stupid, and you'll eventually relish the scenes where he gets over his head and into serious trouble. The bad guys are really mean-spirited for a movie that tries to be somewhat light-hearted the rest of the time.

Oh, and the climatic race sequence? It was one of the most boring car races I have ever seen. For one thing, the cars for the most part seem to be going half speed instead of full-out.

Maybe I'll give the movie another chance twenty-five years from now...

Lemme see if I done got this right:

Hayseed peoples they be peoples too and most of your cinema pickings they's for city folks with pretensions and academic duh-grees and walking around using fancy French words and stuff like that.

But a good old boy likes a good barroom brawl now and then and some cute dixie chicks - and you should have more skin than Daisy used to show on prime time - and oh but we gotta have a great big old car race with clumsy looking backwoods Chevy 56s and 57s and they gotta rev their engines like they got no mufflers no more.

And we gotta have some good old country picking through this here race and - intermittently as they say - throughout the movie.

But here's the trick: you don't almost have to pay nobody any good money to do no good cos them hayseeds what like movies like this they don't know much about no film making anyways, and as long as ya got the obligatory nudie bonk with female nipple and round female breast in subdued light and stuff and someone playing who's ostensibly studying James Burton on guitar, then that's real fine Slim - they'll never notice the difference! No way!

And the money keeps on coming in... And who said money doesn't make the world go 'round?

PS. For the best laugh of all, waiting until the closing titles - listen to the music! The people who made this movie - who are these people? Oh goodness.

Judge Reinhold stars as a rich kid driving his new Thunderbird from school in California down to Florida to commence work in his dad's restaurant business. A car with three roughnecks drives by and shoots a hole in his radiator, and a passing hitchhiker (Willem Dafoe) helps get the car running again. They only make it to the next small town in Arizona, where they have to replace the damaged part. They meet a pair of bored sisters who start up a romance, and the new friends run into the three roughnecks again, who happen to be the town troublemakers. Bar brawls, hot rod races and 50's style rock n roll fill out the running time. Also with Kaaren Lee, Kate Vernon, Stephen Elliott, Alan Autry, Kevyn Major Howard, Peter Van Norden, and the Western Union Man as himself.

Taken as a character study, it still lacks enough interest to make the effort worthwhile. Reinhold is decent doing his usual naive good guy act, while Dafoe unfortunately doesn't add his usual intensity. Filmed in Kingman, Arizona.

One can easily see why Judge Reinhold was cast in the role of Det. William 'Billy' Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop. This movie, which came out the same year, but was probably made earlier has the same character exactly. It is a real treat seeing him in the role of clueless rich kid. Maybe he gave up on the idea of running Pork Boy franchises and went straight to Beverly Hills for a job.

I always enjoy Willem Dafoe, and I really like his character here. You even get to hear him sing. He does his best work with Kaaren Lee, while Judge is taking care of Kate Vernon.

Great soundtrack and a predictable ending. It even has Stomper (Kevyn Major Howard) from Death Wish II, and 'Bubba' Skinner (Alan Autry) from "In the Heat of the Night".

The 66 Classic was not the most exciting race I have ever seen, but certainly the most scenic. Makes me want to head to Oatman, AZ right now.

The box copy hints that this is an action-comedy adventure, but don't be fooled. There really isn't much comedy and the action is pretty intermittent for an adventure movie, but the two lead performances make the exercise watchable. Spoiled preppie Judge Reinhold and cool drifter Willem Dafoe make a likable mismatched pair of traveling buddies, and once you get past the odd logic that Dafoe as Johnny would bother taking his social opposite under his wing to show him the rules of survival on the road, the movie passes pleasantly. The wide open, largely empty desert makes a nice setting and is well used as a place of isolation, where a philosophical loner like Johnny can find solitude to think. The viewer gets slowly sucked into Johnny's view of the world and begins to cheer Reinhold in his philosophical make-over, and leaves with a positive glow. The movie is neither particularly striking or memorable visually, but the chemistry between the two actors makes the time pass amiably and it can be revisited to get back the same good feeling. This is one of those movies that is more a mood altering substance than entertainment, but as such it's nice.