On R List of Movie Reviews
(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)
Roadhouse 66 (1984)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
6/21
6/21:
Take away Willem Dafoe, and Roadhouse 66 has nothing going for it.
The movie was doing fairly well until the car race and then sputtered badly all the way to the end. At the same time, I noticed
the loss of momentum when Willem Dafoe was gone for a bit while. Hence, he's too good for this piece of shit, having moved on
to do serious pictures with an A-list cast.
Oh, that god-awful car race. There's no question everybody was driving less than fifteen miles per hour. The first two
Mad Max films had characters going at least four times faster while doing incredible stunts.
In Roadhouse 66, it begins with six cars. The drivers of the four are known, but for the final two, I'm never shown their
faces.
The cast is all right which includes Judge Reinhold and Alan Autry. There's a good reason why each is memorable for one and only
one thing: the former, Beverly Hills Cop, and the latter,
In the Heat of the Night. Forget the young ladies;
one of them saw her career go way south and disappeared from Hollywood four years afterwards.
All in all, the rookie director should've skipped the car race by relying on the chemistry among Willem Dafoe, Judge Reinhold,
Kaaren Lee, and Kate Vernon to make Roadhouse 66 work.