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House 2: Last Call" sees Johnathon Schaech
(who last starred in the pointless sequel to
Nicholas Cage's "8MM") as Shane Tanner,
the son of the original "Road House's"
James Dalton (Patrick Swayze). Now a DEA agent in
the big city, Shane returns to the
Louisiana
town of his childhood when his uncle Nate (Will
Patton), who had raised him after the death of his
father, gets beaten to a bloody pulp by colorful
local drug dealer Wild Bill (Jake Busey), who is
after Nate's bar, The Black Pelican for nefarious
reasons. Back home again, Shane takes over The
Black Pelican, romances the beautiful but hardass
Beau (Ellen Hollman), and before you know it, 70
minutes are up and it's time for the climactic
showdown where everyone gets theirs. Pass the
beer!
For a sequel to a film about
a guy who beats up people in bars for a living,
"Road House 2" seems curiously
uninterested in its bar scenes. There is one
obligatory drag-down fight in the bar between
Shane and some of Wild Bill's men early on, and
that's about it. The rest of the film occupies
itself with Wild Bill, whose boss, played by
ex-kickboxing champ Richard Norton, soon comes
down to scream at his incompetent underling.
Apparently the bad guys want The Black Pelican
because the bar's location makes it the perfect
staging ground for drug running. And for a guy
whose uncle got stabbed, shot, and hospitalized,
Shane, the big DEA man, really doesn't do any
investigation. Everything sort of, well, comes to
him, including the girl.
There is such an emphasis on
"Road House 2" being a sequel to the
original that Swayze's lines from the 1989 film
are repeated throughout the film, apparently as
some kind of inside joke to the film's fans, the
original having achieved cult status in the
intervening 17 years. After a while, you wish
"Last Call" would shake off the shackles
of its predecessor and just get on with being a
standalone film. Not that I believe this would
have improved the film any, as the script
(co-written by Schaech, no less) doesn't seem
capable of being anything more than generic
B-action movie stuff.
The film does earn its
stripes by way of a couple of pretty brutal action
sequences, one involving Shane and the
aforementioned Black Pelican encounter with Wild
Bill's boys, and then at the end, when tough chick
Beau goes head to head with Wild Bill's
knife-wielding assassin. The two women's battle
might just be the most hardcore girl-on-girl
combat ever committed to film, and if for nothing
else, you should rent "Road House 2"
just for that scene. The always great character
actor Will Patton, despite having what amounts to
a cameo, nevertheless manages to squeeze in three
improbable fights into the movie. Patton was no
doubt having fun with the role, as this is
probably the first time he's been called on to
play an action hero, albeit a semi-retired one.
"Road House 2's"
biggest mistake is going beyond the call of duty
to needlessly tying itself to the original. Not
only did they make Shane the son of "the
legendary
Dalton
" (the mother's name, and her fate, is never
mentioned), but the film goes so far as to tie the
current villains up with the death of
Dalton
. All of this wouldn't be so farfetched if the
actors weren't of such varying age. Schaech is not
only older than Busey, but he looks three times older, which makes their character's shared
history all the more ludicrous.
As the villain, Busey is
clearly enjoying himself, and more than once
reminds you of his father's later career in
similar villainous direct-to-video fare. As Busey
overplays his role with gusto, you can easily
picture the elder Busey in the exact same role,
doing the exact same thing. It's uncanny how
similar father and son not only look alike, but
how their acting style has mirrored each other.
But perhaps Busey felt that his overly exhausting
pyrotechnics were justified, seeing as how leading
man Schaech has neither the charm nor personality
to carry the movie. This guy is dull.
"Road House 2" also
indulges in a couple of howlers that will please
fans of bad screenwriting. After a gunfight with
federal agents at The Black Pelican, Wild Bill is
nevertheless free to roam about
Louisiana
. We get a 1-second sound bite about how the DEA
didn't have proper jurisdiction to pursue Wild
Bill in the first place, and thus they can't go
after him for trying to kill them -- or the 100 or
so civilians in the bar at the time of the
gunfight, not to mention the couple that Wild Bill
kidnaps at gunpoint in order to procure their boat
in order to make his escape from the DEA raid.
Later, Beau is warned by Wild Bill that he plans
to attack Shane later that night at The Black
Pelican. Instead of informing Shane of this fact,
our heroine plots to lure him away from the bar so
he will be safe. Result: Shane is safe (he also
gets a little nooky -- nice distraction tactic!),
but two of his bouncers are beaten to bloody pulps
and the club is trashed. Now that's smart
thinking, young lady!
Undemanding action junkies
may find the film's few Muay Thai-infused fights
reasonably entertaining, if not overly impressive.
("Ong
Bak" this ain't.) Schaech looks physical
enough for the demands of the role, but much of
the film's action scenes are tainted by creative
camerawork that involves a lot of undercranking.
And while the stunt work is pretty good all
around, the film is greatly hampered by poor
writing, something that makes the brief 85-minute
running time seem like 2 hours. Nevertheless,
there is that aforementioned hellacious
girl-on-girl combat at the end that is downright
spectacular, and is most definitely worth the
price of admission. My suggestion is to just
fast-forward to the last 10 minutes or so, and
ignore the rest of the film.
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