I occasionally write for an irreverent movie website called Chud.com, and so I have a backlog of brain dropping-type articles I figured I'd post here, just because I'm lazy and at the moment I don't have time to write a lot of new stuff.  I thought maybe my imaginary non-existent audience might enjoy a fully fleshed out article, rather than the scatter-brained pablum I usually barf out on these pages.  Here's the first one.

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Why ROAD HOUSE Is the Best Western Ever Made

The Man With No Name trilogy. Unforgiven. The Outlaw Josey Wales. Once Upon a Time in the West. The Searchers. True Grit. The Magnificent Seven. The Wild Bunch.

Panty waists, all.

The best Western ever made features more story, more combat, more honor, more blood and spit per reel than these so-called "classics" put together. Of course I'm talking about Road House, Rowdy Herrington's seminal 1989 film about "cooler" Dalton (the ubiquitous Patrick Swayze, naturally) and his war to save a dying Missouri town from land baron Brad Wesley (the less ubiquitous Ben Gazzara).

Don't agree with my opinion? Fine. It is, after all, only an opinion. (Although next time you're trying to get laid and you go with The Searchers over Road House, make note of what your hand ends up holding by the end of the night.) Don't agree with my calling Road House a Western? Well pull up a seat, son, 'cause now we got ourselves an argument.

Westerns are built on a certain formula. In the same way there's no gangsta rap without bitches and hos (or is it hoes?), there's no Western without a few mandatory building blocks. So let's see how Road House stacks up against the field, shall we?

SETTING

A small Missouri town. Most of the action takes place at the local saloon, the Double Deuce. Near the saloon is Red's hardware store, and further on is Dalton's barn. (Yes, the man lives in a barn. But he's not Amish. He smokes too much, sleeps during daylight hours, and I'm pretty sure the Amish don't go starkers when they do sleep.) So, technically, our story takes place in the Midwest, but that's not as important as the components of the production, which are classically Western in nature. I mean, a saloon? Gimme a whiskey, barkeep.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Dalton. Dalton is essentially a hired gunfighter, the brooding Clint Eastwood role, brought in to clean up the town by townspeople who don't have the guts (or, let's face it, the karate skills) to free themselves from the bonds of Brad Wesley. Dalton's the man who speaks little but carries a big six shooter--I mean, roundhouse kick. You don't mess with Dalton, and since this is a Western, that means Dalton is messed with time and time again.

Brad Wesley. Wesley's the villain, the land baron, the guy whose father didn't show him enough affection, only how to bully those with lesser means. Wesley runs this small Missouri town, having one of his greasy fingers in literally every pot (he supplies the booze to the Double Deuce, for example), and he takes 10% of everything. But not Dalton. Though he does try. Which means, well, we'll get to that later, but if you don't know by now, you're better off watching Scooby Doo and wondering who's haunting the carnival.

Doc. The love interest is actually called Doc (she is a doctor, after all). She has a name, but does it really matter? Like the hookers/midwives of Dodge City, Doc mends those maimed at the saloon, including a knife-wounded Dalton (I told you he wasn't Amish). Doc becomes Dalton's shoulder to lean on, the one stable port in the vortex he creates for himself. Amazingly enough, she also finds time to treat some patients. I guess. She does have a lot of sex with Dalton...

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

Frank Tighlman, owner of the Double Deuce. Tighlman knows he can't run a respectable saloon without bringing in a cooler to take out the trash. He serves the essential purpose of setting the story in motion, and he's played by Kevin Tighe, one of those actors who looks like he's got something else on the side, which brings a nice edge to the character. Nice pick, Rowdy.

Wade, the mentor. When the gunfighter's down and looks beat for good, Wade (nice play by Sam Elliott), his old friend and mentor, shows up 1) to juice up the proceedings with his hard-assed wisecracks, 2) to try to convince Dalton of what we've been thinking all along (i.e., What the fuck are you doing there, man? Get out of there! If you drive a Mercedes - you know, because of the glamorous lifestyle of cleaning up shithole bars - you probably have a few options), and 3) to get killed by the villain, so the gunfighter finally gains the moral high ground to go apeshit (because the multiple beatings and arson weren't enough). Plus, he calls Dalton "mijo," and if that's not Western, I don't know what is.

Red, the shopkeeper. As a character he doesn't add much to the argument, other than the fact that he's named Red and he owns a shop in town. Can't get more Western than that. Same goes for...

Emmitt, the farmer. Emmitt owns the barn Dalton lives in. And calling him sir is "like putting an elevator in an outhouse. It just don't fit." Well said, my friend.

PLOT

We've got the classic Western setting, the classic Western characters, we just need a plot to hang this all on. What's key here is that the plot isn't important, which is how our modern-day, Missouri-set action picture is able to be considered a Western. We simply need a way to get these characters together, in this setting, to fight it out. Most of it I've already gone over: Saloon owner brings in the cooler to clean up the bar, who runs afoul of the local land baron, which leads to punches, explosions, spin kicks, gratuitous strip teases, blind guitar players, and Bigfoot. (If you were alive in the 80's you know which Bigfoot I'm talking about.)

Also worth mentioning:

Jimmy the Kid. Jimmy wears some kind of tooth on a choker around his neck, and he shows up halfway through the film at the side of the villain, wearing tight jeans. In his first few scenes he doesn't do much but look menacing. We know this means at some point he'll be twirling a broomstick around and whipping three guys at a time before beckoning Dalton to fight. His name is Jimmy, but we might as well call him Kid, because he's the upstart who wants nothing more than to make a name for himself by taking a piece of Dalton. In the Western a guy like this is called Kid. Unforunately for Kid, the only pieces of Dalton he gets are knuckles, kneecaps and heels.

Problems are dealt with by fire. Classic Western plot development. When all else fails, light some shit on fire. Red's store, Emmitt's barn, even the Mercedes. Nothing like some good old fashioned arson. What's a Western without the hero carrying someone out of a burning building?

Showdowns 'a plenty. Okay, here's where we begin to separate ourselves from the crowd and transcend the genre. I didn't set a watch to it, but there's fight about every 10-15 minutes in this movie. Since traditional Westerns feature one-and-done pistols and rifles (insert derogatory sexual remark here), often an entire film is spent setting up for one key showdown at the end that brings the fates of all the main characters together. Not the case with our beloved Road House. How else could the film illustrate the sheer pointlessness of violence without offering up an endless barrage of punching and kicking? By the time Dalton finally stages an assault on Wesley's compound (he's the villain, remember, so it's a compound, not a mansion), we've taken an emotional journey of such visceral impact that we feel like we fired the bullets that rip apart Wesley's sternum. Obviously we don't in a literal sense, but do you know who does? Red and Tighlman, of course. Who else? In the climactic showdown the townspeople band around the gunfighter to stand up against their oppressor, and that is the essence of the Western. Manifest destiny, friends. Nothing will stop our right to keep what's rightfully ours.

Plus, and this is the biggest X factor of all, it's fucking Patrick Swayze! You don't put his small Missouri town in a corner. I can't explain it; it's just that the Swayze elevates the material to something more than the sum of its (Western) parts. Maybe it's the mullet. Maybe it's the sinewy dancer's body. Maybe it's the barely-above-the-waist spin kicks. Whatever it is, the Swayze sells the Western ideal for full value, the themes of vengeance and redemption, David versus Goliath, defending what's rightfully yours, and how to kick someone's ass while maintaining perfect hair.

All told, there's simply no room for argument. No other Western comes close to matching Road House's electric mix of plot, character and dragon kicks. And that makes Road House the best Western ever made.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe Road House is just a dumbass shoot-'em-up with lots of badly choreographed fight scenes, even worse acting, and a predictable, formulaic plot that panders only to the lowest common denominator.

But I'm pretty sure I'm right.