Why Patrick Swayze’s film swagger hit different than other Hollywood leading men

He had it all.

I’ll cut Jake Gyllenhaal and company some much-needed slack. They had a big pair of shoes to fill. Don’t check Rotten Tomatoes, because the 1989 original Road House holds a much lower score than the remake due to the cheese sauce being laid on too thick for film critics back then. However, this spring’s remake didn’t have a certain lead star at its disposal, someone who fit that world to a tee. There was an overzealous homage attempt by director Doug Liman and Gyllenhaal, but it paled in comparison to the real thing.

Patrick Swayze was the real thing. He was something else. A different breed of action hero lead that Hollywood didn’t collect a ton of, one who could transition into a drama or comedy easily. They had plenty of muscular tough guys and martial artist tough guys, but an athletic thinking man’s good guy (who knew some karate too) was still rare. Bruce Willis had started the trend with the very popular Die Hard but again, Swayze was different.

In addition to having bombshell looks (Zac Efron, eat your heart out), he had a unique presence on camera that felt intimidating and wholesome all at once, a dagger used for cooling rowdy (the film’s director is also named Rowdy!) bars with a dangerous clientele. The mullet and 80s clothing didn’t hinder him like it would others, helping the audience see a man of integrity and danger. Swayze made it all effortless.

How many of us wanted to take up tai chi after finishing Road House? Anyone else feel the need to rent the second floor of a house out in the woods with a beat-up muscle car and a suitcase of clothes to your name? We bought sweatpants and shaved. We wanted to be Dalton, because we wanted to be Swayze. That’s the true mark that an actor needs to make, and it has little to do with awards.

Would Swayze, who died way too young at 57 back in 2009 to the insurmountable asshole that is pancreatic cancer, trade his roles as Bodhi in Point Break and Johnny in Dirty Dancing for a shiny gold statue of a naked bald man? I think not. Would he exchange his world-breaking hit, Ghost, with Demi Moore for a nice and neat Golden Globe? Nope. He didn’t need awards to remind himself he was great.

You never winced when Swayze was in a movie or television show; the whole thing instantly got better looking and more worth watching. Trying to replicate him only leads to disappointment.

While the Road House remake is scoring well on R.T. and should make Amazon happy, it was a direct-to-streaming generic ripoff of the original with a few unnecessary updates. They also tried to remake Point Break, with results that are honestly too forgettable to go looking up. The lesson is simple: Leave Swayze goodness alone.

He carried a screen presence that few actors could maintain: a leading man who could do action and save the day, make you laugh, and change sides to play a criminal without making you not want to be him. Like many a fallen star, he is sorely missed.

In order to cleanse the palate after watching the remake, I turned on the Swayze version. It was like climbing onto an old roller coaster ride, one that went all the way back to childhood. Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara, Kelly Lynch, Marshall R. Teague, and the talented Jeff Healy. The people who call it too cheesy don’t understand that the order back in 1989 was a cheese pizza… topped with true grit.

Swayze had film swagger. You can’t replicate that. Stop trying.