Episode 619 - How To Fight Patrick Swayze as Dalton in the Roadhouse (1989)
In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams give us a new segment called How To Fight and they are joined by Craig Wharem.
How To Fight Patrick Swayze as Dalton in the Roadhouse (1989) - Episode 619
The film Roadhouse (1989) is starred by Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliott, and Kelly Lynch. It features the life of Dalton (Patrick Swayze) who is a bouncer in a newly refurbished roadside bar who protects a small town in Missouri from a corrupt businessman. Jeremy, Andrew, and Craig discuss how are they going to fight Dalton by analyzing his stance, style, and moves. Listen and join this fun conversation!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. We're back with another episode of ‘How To Fight’ today. We're going to go over how we would fight Dalton. Does he have a last name? I don't even know his last name. Dalton from Roadhouse played by of course, Patrick Swayze. I am joined, as I frequently am by Andrew Adams. Andrew, how's it going?
Andrew Adams:
Great. Great. Dalton was actually his last name.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, what's his first name?
Andrew Adams:
James.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, I didn't get that from the film. James Dalton.
Andrew Adams:
The only way you'd get it is if you paused during the medical scene where his medical records are on a farm.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I didn't go into that level. And back again, multiple time contributor to whistlekick things. My friend Craig Wharem. Craig, how are you?
Craig Wharem:
Good. How are you? Good. Good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks for being here. Now you chose this movie, didn't you? This is we invited you on and then you pick the movie.
Craig Wharem:
Well, so what happened was Andrew reached out and I kind of, like we bounced what four or five names off. And it just kind of hit me because I was like, you know, some of the names we bounce off from movies that my dad really enjoys. So, then I was like, Alright, and then I feel like Roadhouse comes up in the dojo a lot, you know, like, random batches. So, then I was like, oh, it just seems to make sense. Right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Craig Wharem:
Well, I'm breaking down Patrick Swayze seems like a good short way for me tribute.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, this is such an interesting film for us to tackle because it is often lumped in as a martial arts movie, and I hadn't watched it until last night. And I couldn't understand why people were calling this a martial art movie. And then we get to that scene, which, you know, the scene that I'm talking about him like, Oh, this really is a martial arts movie. What the heck, and I'm pressing pause, and I'm like, digging around the internet. And I'm searching things and we'll get there. But it was it was fascinating for me to watch this after hearing about it. So many times.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, you're right. It comes up a lot. And, you know, I know that you watched it for the first time yesterday. Craig, is this a movie you have seen in the past?
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, I saw it when I was younger, like, you know, on DVD or something. And then it's just always on cable every holiday weekend, right? Like, it's always on Spike TV or something. So, I would click it on and get like half of it. But this was the first time on Sunday, sitting through and watching it all again. And so, it was an experience. Again, it was fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Andrew?
Andrew Adams:
It was a movie that I had seen many times I likely saw didn't see in the theater, but I would have likely seen it shortly thereafter. And I'm curious Jeremy, on a scale of one where one's really bad. A scale of one to best of the best. Where does it work? Best of the Best is like obviously attempt.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so on your scale one is the best. Okay, so if the Best of the Best is the worst movie, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is the best movie, I would have to put this somewhere in the middle. Which really surprised me. When this started out. I'm not generally a big fan of 80s movies. I'm really not you know, when we talked a few weeks ago when we did the the Jeff Speakman one in Perfect Weapon. I was pleasantly surprised then. What I liked about it was the quality of the martial arts that it was such a great representation of martial arts of kempo on screen. What I liked about this was not so much the quality of the martial arts, but the quality of the character. There was so much depth and this is kind of the the downside to our format is that really the character himself is more or less irrelevant. But James Dalton was such a complex and interesting character that I totally understand why someone like Patrick Swayze, who you know, if I remember when he goes come out with goes just after this. It was the next movie, okay. Which was where he got really big wasn't it? Wasn't that the film that kind of catapulted him or
Andrew Adams:
The film that really catapulted him would have been Dirty Dancing, which was what he did immediately before. Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. So, there's a good chance that, you know, timing wise, that he selected this movie before Dirty Dancing blew up. I mean, I'd have to go back and verify that. But however, you slice it, this was, well, you know, I'm speculating on things that I shouldn't be. So, I'm just going to shut up and let somebody else talk. I liked the character. I thought the character was interesting. I like the movie because of the character there.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, go ahead, Greg.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Greg, you're the guest.
Craig Wharem:
What I liked about Dalton is like you said, Martial Arts from a physical standpoint, he doesn't stand out super, like in a really crazy way. But he has that philosophy background, and he kind of like takes the awareness and the pre planning into account when he does stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. And that was something that I know we're going to talk about is that awareness that forethought, right is going to be a big aspect of what we discuss. Andrew?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, absolutely. As you know, that he had a reason for doing the things that he did. He didn't just go into a fight haphazardly, for no reason at all, like, as opposed to when we talked about the last movie, that just sequence character. His character was very, you know, hot headed. And I think we have the exact polar opposite. And I think it's likely because his character has a philosophy background. And you know, he had a method to what he was doing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Absolutely, absolutely. So, there's the character, there's the film, there's our experiences with it. And so, we've got this overarching goal of determining how we each would fight. Dalton. And before we go any further, I just want to point out I was blown away at how at 45 years old Sam Elliott looked like he was roughly the same age he is now calling him old man. And I'm like, “How old is he now?” And I had to look it up and get it when he filmed this movie. He was 45. He's my age. And if I was to put Sam then next to you now, I would assume that was at least 30 years between the two of you. I'd say he looks really good for 70. Yeah, in that movie.
Craig Wharem:
And he like my whole goal and I get all gray, is to have hair like Wade Garrett .
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. So, I've got notes. I think you guys also have notes. You know, we brought up the planning ahead, we brought up the philosophy. We brought up the... I wrote down observing. This was very early on, this was that first exchange that he was watching. He's observing. He's intimidating. He's confident, and he's unfazed. Throughout this film, nothing that happened physically to or around him. Bothered him. He was cool.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. In fact, the only time that I saw him even remotely lose this cool would have been when his friend Wade Garrett was murdered. Like that was really the first time in the entire movie. Until the very last fight. Well, not the last fight, but the big fight with Jimmy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure, sure. And yet, you know, when after Wade is killed, and he goes to the mansion, and we see his car driving, it clicks, it makes sense. It's like, Okay, he's really upset. He's just gonna barrel in there and, and kick a bunch of butts like this is what we typically see in a martial arts film is that the hero, the antagonist? Sorry, the protagonist, just, you know, makes a mistake. They make a tactical error that somehow they dig themselves out of that hole as they're going after the antagonist and their henchmen. And yet, when we see that car crash, we're like, oh, he's gonna get out and be on fire and beat everybody up. But we realized that he didn't do that, even though that's what everyone was expected. And he took that opportunity to sneak in and murder a bunch of people.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yeah. And I will say that was one thing that my wife noticed and recognized was that although the fighting was fairly realistic, like I was fairly impressed with how well it was done for what I saw was a fairly low budget movie. I mean, he had great training. I mean, Benny ‘the jet’ Urquidez was the fight choreographer for this movie. I didn't realize that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's awesome.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. And, in fact, and you know, Patrick Swayze himself he had a black belt in Kung Fu. He studied fairly extensively in Taekwondo and Aikido and judo. And actually, Benny ‘the jet’ during this filming wanted Patrick Swayze to become a competitive kickboxer.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's really interesting, because one of the things that I'm going to say later on is that I thought his kicks most of the time were terrible.
Andrew Adams:
Interesting.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like really bad. Yeah, I would if you if what you just said was, he had a lot of experience as a boxer, I totally would have believed you, because the quality of his hand techniques versus his foot techniques were was dramatically different. Yeah. The last thing I want to I want to talk about before we get into the actual fight scenes where things happen, where his rules, he had three rules for the bouncers. Never underestimate your opponent and expect the unexpected. Take It Outside, never in the bar, and be nice. Yeah, these are really solid, self-defense principles. And you can look at them from the perspective of being a bouncer in a bar. But you could also look at them from the perspective of self-defense, mitigation of violence, etc. Number one, and number three are pretty obvious. Don't underestimate your opponents and be nice. But that second one, take it outside. You can look at it as “Oh, there's less damage to the bar”. But there's also so much less that can happen around you because you within a confined space, all those pointy, sharp objects, chaos, it's not an environment you want to conduct self defense with. I know you guys have both instructed. You've probably discussed the scenario of self defense in a bar. And it's one of the places that I am least excited to talk people through, because there's just so much that can go wrong. Yeah, and go ahead, Craig, go ahead.
Craig Wharem:
Well, I was just going to say, I agree with the point you were making Jeremy. And the other thing about taking it outside the bar is, it just eliminates the idea that other people could get hurt, right? You've created this barrier, like doing security, because I've worked a door a few times and stuff. And one of the things that that they always told us was you want to make sure that the people inside the bar feel safe and secure. And the best way to do that is to find a way that out thank them or be clever, you know which he does. He demonstrates that at a certain point in the movie as well. Andrew, what were you going to say?
Andrew Adams:
In doing my research for the movie, I actually found a interesting note on the IMDB page that noted that after this movie came out a number of police departments took that scene and started showing it to their police officers. As you know, this is what you should be understanding about how to deal with people, because they are three solid rules. I mean, obviously, they're not, you know, bouncers. And they're not saying take it outside the bar, but like that I see that more as be aware of your surroundings. And so I found that really interesting that police officers saw that as, hey, these are good rules for us to keep in mind as well. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So the first time that we get any, any idea of the skill of this character is just about almost a half hour in, you know, a quarter of the way through the movie, it's how long it takes to set up all these things that are going on. And this guy pulls a knife out. And then there's Patrick Swayze, his character, bam, knife disarm, it was passed. Nobody saw him coming. It was the word I wrote down surgical, like his technique in that movement. I don't know how many times they had to shoot that exchange, but it was flawless. It was absolutely beautiful. And then wonderful use of the environment and using the table to smash the guy. Did you guys have any kind of a different reaction there?
Craig Wharem:
No, the thought I had to use it surgical. I thought it was efficient, right? Like a lot of times, they want to showcase knife fighting in a movie, and they want to like make them dance around with it and play around with it. But anyone who's trained knife disarms knows that the more you mess around with it, the more likely you are to just get slashed. So, it should be quick and efficient. And I agree, I also wrote down environmental awareness of like, this is this is an unconventional weapon in a table. So, let's bounce that off it, you know? Yeah. So, I had to save notes.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I wrote blinding blindingly fast that scenario, and I felt it was very realistic, you know, kind of going off what you said, Craig, you know, often movies, they're there to make a big long fight scene, because you know, it's fun to watch. Whereas in real life, if you were a bouncer, you would want the situation taken care of and resolved in as quick a timeframe as possible. And that's what impressed me about that very first opening scene or the opening fight.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, I didn't see any weaknesses there. There's nothing in that I would be able to exploit. The first thing that I saw and this was a recurring theme, and honestly to the point where I think it is a pothole, it is inconsistent with the character as we see him. A couple minutes later, he walks to his car alone. After this, these threats of violence now, the closest I've ever gotten to that kind of exchan, and I had someone It was a wedding, and someone was very mad that I played Yellow Submarine despite the fact that the people that I was responsible to were very happy that I played Yellow Submarine and there was this drunk guy and he was in my face. And he threatened me on my way to my car later. I had an escort to my car when I went to get it. Despite the fact that I have some skill, despite the fact that this was a generally happy event, I wasn't going to chance it, he didn't seem to care. And every single time he walked out to his car when, regardless of the slash tires, which he expected, because he bought spare tires, stop sign in the car, right? He knew that there was the opportunity for violence, and these people were trying, we're going to try to hurt him. But he still, you know, he wasn't walking in a cautious way. He was very confident. But I don't think that was consistent with the attitude that we see through the film of I am going to be patient, I'm going to be reserved, I have nothing to prove to anyone, etc.
Craig Wharem:
I kind of saw it, I can see two sides of it. Right? One, you can make the argument that he's reading his opponent, he knows that they're more so trying to scare him than hurt him. Right? So, at the beginning, they put the stop sign to the car, right? And they slashed his tires. That's just making it an inconvenience for him. So, he can say, yeah, they're not going to try and jump me at night, which I don't think is self- defense wise, a very wise decision, right? Like I would always be prepared for the worst, right? So the other the other side of that would be he's just has too much of an ego in a way like I can handle whatever they throw at me. And that's that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And if we interpret it that way, Andrew, I want to hear what you think. But if we interpret it that way, there's a whole there's an opportunity for something to exploit.
Andrew Adams:
Well, I mean, one of his one of his second tenant is expect the unexpected. He expected his tires to get slashed. He expected the car to get junk. That's why he bought a crappy car. Right? Right. So, he expected that you should be expecting the unexpected. I was also surprised that he walked out to his car all by himself without a care in the world very nonchalant.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright, so about 10 minutes or so later in the film, we get the group bar fight and this is really the first time where we see him in act, truly in action. And he's doing really good at avoiding things he is patient and he gets caught with a knife, doesn't faze him whatsoever he goes home and he stitches it up himself. Isn't that the one raised stitches? No, no. That was earlier on. Yeah, that was after he did he does the knife disarm? Yeah, they he switches it up himself. This is the one where he goes to the hospital and he meets the the cute doctor but he gets he gets cut across the the ribs across the torso. Doesn't bother him pain clearly does not affect this guy. And I think that that is something incredibly important to note. If we're building a profile on how to fight him
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, I wrote down no pain compliance. So, like, you know, joint manipulation, things like that probably won't have a super effect on him. You know, it has to be something where whatever you do to him has to be a quick disabling thing where he can't move them or something like that not I'm going to hold you in a wrist lock or an armbar and make you submit because I don't think that would happen.
Andrew Adams:
Maybe in his own words, pain don't hurt. Right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. He refused anesthesia another 10 minutes later, you know after we crossed the point where he says nobody ever wins a fight which you know, I mean, that's I should put that on teacher it's something I've said for many years. We see a group fight again. And one of these the dirt bad guys comes in with a knife on his boots. And he notices that I mean that that is something that required tremendous study. That wasn't just something you're going to notice casually he was looking for it credibly. Yeah, rapid threat assessment. And he's decisive. The thing that we get to see here, and I think it becomes something that is a recurring theme. Dalton looks to be a really good fighter through this movie. Because all but one of the people he faces are terrible, very to the point of of hilarity. It is amazing how bad these people are.
Andrew Adams:
Well, but I think it they the movie goes to very good points. Very good length to show you that that like they don't. The movie doesn't try and show you that the people he's fighting are good. Like shows clearly obvious that these guys are bad. You know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What that means is if all of his experience is in dealing with people who don't know how to fight, who have zero skill, and we're talking about us, one of us fighting that character, that it's an unknown, but I think it's an unknown that would be to his disadvantage, because I think we admire various times in training, I've had phases where I get into the habit of sparring people who are younger students, not necessarily younger age, but younger in skill. And you adapt, you get used to what you have to do, you're not operating at your peak, you're kind of down here. If you're used to hanging out down here, and you get somebody who's suddenly going to challenge the full extent of your skill, it's going to take some time to dust that stuff off. So, I think that's a gap to exploit. Yeah, I would agree.
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, I agree to because we see that a little bit later on, he kind of gets it handed to him by the one person there who shows any sort of skill,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. The other thing I think of note here, and I think that this is an interesting part, and we see other aspects is he's willing to do what has to be done to end the fight. He does not his metrics for what is right and wrong in the context of a fight. And when we get that kind of side, side arc around whether or not he killed someone. Take the biggest guy smashes me he'll drop like a stone. Right? He says that at the end of this. And maybe it's the beginning. And I found that really interesting. And then you've got later on where you know, he rips the guy's throat out?
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Which was not the first time, which was not the first time he'd done that. Right? Well, so he's obviously not going to hesitate. Correct?
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, that feeds into a self-defense principle, right. Like, if you're in a fight for real, like your responsibility is to go home at the end of the day. And so, you have to be able to justify in your own head and define what that looks like to you and be okay with whatever you need to do. So that, to me, that's a pretty realistic part of this movie. Because you also see in the diner, when they're kind of talking about it, he still struggles with what has happened in his past. It's not like other martial arts movies where, you know, somebody gets, you know, crashes and kills 20 people in a final fight, and then walks home at the end of the day and has spaghetti for dinner. You know, they show that he It weighs on him still.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I would agree it definitely the movie did a good job of showing the internal struggle that he had with doing that. And in both instances when he, you know, murdered both of those people, was when a gun was drawn on him. Right. And I think that's an important part as well. I will say my wife's response in terms of how she would fight Patrick Swayze, character Dalton is she would just wear a metal gore over her neck, and then she would be fine.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like, this, this was the point in the movie where, where I started having thoughts that Patrick Swayze was the modern Samson from the Bible, and that maybe if you cut off his hair. If you cut off his hair, maybe that's where his powers and he would die. Moving on. Few minutes later, he's on the hood of the car. He's hanging out looking at the stars, whatever, and two of the jerks come over. And, you know, we've been looking all over for you. And again, he's unfazed. And in fact, he's so unfazed. He's so calm in that situation, probably because he's spent the majority of his professional career dealing with intimidating, intimidating situations and get his adrenaline doesn't even pop anymore for this. Keep pops off the hood abruptly and startled, slow. Yeah. And I found that I think of any of the scenes was probably the most telling to me of how cool in these situations he would be. Because he doesn't just nonchalantly get off his wits about him so much that he says, I'm going to turn the tables on them. I'm going to go with them into an obviously dangerous situation. And I'm that confident because of my experience because of my ability to think clearly.
Andrew Adams:
And he and his ability to put them on their toes. Yeah, like jumping off the car quickly. That was a calculated move. He did that on purpose. You know, so yeah, I would agree.
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, it's a quick shift in power dynamic. They thought they had the upper edge and then when they saw he wasn't fazed at all it was you know game on the old Lord of the Rings quote, right, “the closer you are to danger the farther you are from harm”, right? That was exactly what he did was he shifted the whole thing
Jeremy Lesniak:
Come out of the woods and started you know, throwing rocks. We get we're gonna have a really interesting crossover. The Roadhouse.
Craig Wharem:
I think whistlekick should fund a movie Lord of the Roadhouse road.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And for anyone who may not get it, that's a reference to a multiple recurring reference and Family Guy to this movie.
Craig Wharem:
And it's classic. So funny. The other thing about that, that power dynamic was like when so there's two of them. And he jumps off and confronts them. But later on, Wade Garrett says off, they said, I was lucky, it was three of them. And he's all beat up. And he was very clearly like Dalton's mentor at one point. And he said, they let me off easy. There were three of them. So they played this duality of, again, kind of going back almost said arrogance, where there's two of them, and he jumps off to face them, but his mentor who's clearly getting older and can't move as well. Three people shows up, he's like, I'm lucky I'm still here, because they beat me up pretty bad. Yeah, because there were more than one. So it's an interesting duality that they play off.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Another 10 minutes or so in a 15. There's a scenario, a situation where there's a group bite on the loading dock. And he's holding his own, he's doing pretty well, until he takes a bottle to the head. But there was one aspect of this that I thought was obviously disastrous, and that he didn't move out from the middle. Anytime anybody's teaching self defense against a group, even if it's a group of two, what's the first thing we say don't stand in the middle? And this is something that either he was too overconfident to exercise. He did not know it, which would seem surprising. Or he was too overwhelmed to properly think. And or reflect his training. What do you guys think on that?
Craig Wharem:
I think again, it kind of goes back to the oh, I've got this, I can handle it type of type of situation. I think, to me, that was the most glaring part of the movie where I was like, well, the rest of time, you've been pretty smart and calculated and observant and kind of aware of what's going on. And you're standing in the middle of these four, you know, they're not going to go one at a time. Like you've got to move. And you know, that there's a whole box of bottles and stuff right there. So the deck was clearly stacked against him in that way. Yeah, so that that part to me, I wrote it down was I felt like maybe he became a victim of his own confidence. And then in that sense, which again is just something to exploit you know, something like fighting them you want to factor in.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah, I wrote down you know, I storage fight in a medieval society. And we have an expression when you're fighting multiple people have the one against the many, the ones job is to dot the eye, if I'm fighting two people or three people, I want to try and get them in the line. So, I'm the top of the eye and conversely, if I am with a few other friends fighting one person, our job is to cross the teeth. Right? We want to make a straight line, approach this way and start to cross the teeth on the one person. He did an incredibly bad job of dotting the eye because he stayed the bull's eye in the middle of a circle.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He didn't. He absolutely did. He stood there. He got beat up by three people until Wade came out and backed him up. And then I loved the guy who was in the background still just smashing bottles, like your friends are in a in a fight and they're just going to break bottles like the giant guy. Yeah, he's taking cases of alcohol and just breaking them in the middle of a fight nine feet tall. He was a very tall man. He was a anything more on that scene.
Craig Wharem:
Well, in Dalton's defense, so this is a fun little easter egg. It's a cameo that last guy in the fight the curly hair guy, I think his name is Morgan in the movie. He's played by a professional wrestler. That's Terry Funk. So, here's an old school wrestling. Oh, fun. wrestler. Yeah, I didn't know that.
Andrew Adams:
There was also a cameo apparently in the movie of Benny ‘the jet’ Urquidez. In looking at the trivia on this movie, it said he made a very small cameo. And I read that before I watched and I scoured the movie looking for find it. I couldn't find it. Perhaps his scene got cut. I don't know. Oh, originally when this movie was first, like shown not publicly, but apparently it was like three and a half hours long and they had to cut it down. Yeah, it will. Apparently it was much long. Wow. That's a lot of road.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I want to get my head. I want to get my hands on it. That cut of the movie. I want to see that. They took out the next thing that we see. He's in the bar and he's clearly upset and he's practicing on a makeshift mock hawara which I thought was awesome. And then this was an example of some of these aspects of training that unless you've done traditional training, you don't get it. Punch. He's punching board with a beanbag on or whatever it was, but you know, we all recognize that for what it is. And this was the point when I saw “Okay, his punches are solid, they're great they are. They look accurate. They look powerful. They look like they are technically proficient”. His kicks were pushes.
Craig Wharem:
They were dancers kicks.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes, yes, it looks like his choreography came out of dirty dancing. That's a great way to put it. And thus there was no power before full extension. Now it starts to change then you see him shortly after with the heavy bag. And some of his kicks were better. You know, a lot of his kicks were kind of those little rotation, round turning. I think sometimes in Taekwondo, they're competitive Taekwondo, they're called cut kicks. I think that's what I've seen them called. And they're just kind of, there's not a ton of power there. And so the, the interesting thing that I was thinking is the first place where I'm going to say, I'm starting to get an idea of how I would handle this. I want to get closer on the legs, because they're at the very least there's little power, there are less power, but his punches. I don't want to face those punches because they're strong.
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, I can see that. I mean, I did notice like, if I had to, I'd get caged by a more than punched by him like, I'd prefer to be kicked by him just because, again, he moves quick and has those interesting kung fu angles on some of his strikes where it's not like a boxer. They're kind of coming from 360 degrees, you don't really know where you're going, where it's going to go. Sure. But to me, personally, what I saw was I want it to be closer to him than his punching range. That's because he relied on people been in kind of like that middle zone where you can be kicked, you can be punched out of range, but he didn't fare as well in tight. So, kind of those more, not quite clinching. But like that Wing Chun level where you're in really close, and you're just striking that center line seem to the part where he had the most trouble defending against Andrew?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I was surprised that how I was surprised. What I wrote down is he used a lot more really long-range attacks, than would make sense for someone in his job. And those long-range attacks were not very effective. Like, he means, in the Family Guy, episodes, where they've talked about Roadhouse. What is it? What does he always do? He always kicks, right. And he often does a spin kick. And Dalton did a large number of spin kicks, which doesn't make sense if you're going to be a bouncer in a bar, confined spaces, potentially. And, you know, almost all of his long-range attacks did very little.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a great point. The next fight that we see it's he's knocking the guy off the bike; he does a great job of evading his kicks are a lot better in this scene. And it was almost enough that it made me question the consistency of that technique. But since for me the majority of the film his kicks, were not that good. I'm going to say that this is the fluke here, not the other. And that I'm, you know, my strategy is I'm building it as around staying around kick range. And what do I want to do while I'm there? Yeah, but you, Greg?
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, I still think like, for me, as I watch, you know, I watched a lot of it happened and it almost looked like people were just mirroring him. So that's why I feel you know, you're getting close and you control that center line, those straight line strikes right in towards the torso and towards the face. And then if you can control because the other thing that we see a lot is him get grabbed and held. He doesn't have a whole lot of grappling skill. So if you can get in there and overwhelm them, get past those kicks into the center, and then work those takedowns whether it's Judo or wrestling, or whatever, and control him from the ground, I think you can finish it rather quickly. It's just a matter of getting past not so much the kicks but getting past those longer-range strikes. How tall is he? I don't know. I'm going to ask Google, okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because that's an important point. I mean, he's not heavy. But he looks very strong. He looks like he's, you know, 8% body fat, nothing but muscle. Yeah, but I'm going to guess that he's somewhere between 5’10 and 6’1.
Craig Wharem:
He was 5’10 and 160 pounds.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so if he's 160 pounds at the time of filming this movie, there is nothing but muscle on this guy.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yeah, I would concur with Craig that, you know, he didn't do much joint manipulation. I think, in fact, I think the only time I really saw that was the very first scene with the knife. And other than that, he, I don't believe he did any. And even when he got grabbed, his first reaction was to strike rather than, you know, trying to evade in any sort of grappling type of way. So, I think that should be taken into consideration as well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The only other thing I saw that maybe showcase some understanding of joints and working with joints, other than, you know, knees, and is very explicit statement on knees, was when he fought the guy who came off the bike, who used to have relations with people like him in prison. Yep. He kicked it one point, and he deflected it, and braced it against a tree. And it looked like he was using the tree as a fulcrum against the knee. And I found that to be not only a really cool Jackie Chan style, bit of choreography, but really effective, huh.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, and those two actors apparently didn't really get along well, and when they first met, and by the end of the movie, they did, because they both held very firm belief that they should do 90% of their own stunts. And so, the fighting that they're doing in that end scene is it's really that it isn't cutaways, to stunt doubles. And in fact, a lot of this a lot of the stuff that happened there was improvised, huh. And so, like when Jimmy takes the log and hits him with it, that was not choreographed. He just grabbed it and made it. And apparently, he got Patrick Swayze got up a jacked-up knee during that particular scene. And it affected some of the filming afterwards. And he was actually, that's one of the reasons why he decided to do ghosts after this movie, because he knew it wasn't going to be as physically demanding as one of the other movies he was offered, which was Tango and Cash.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Interesting. Alright, the next thing that we have is the knife fight scene where he's apparently used a knife a lot, because he's grabbing them out of the air and throwing them accurately and again, unfazed them flying around his face. And with the exception of that knife, anytime, and it surprised me. You know, we had one experience with somebody holding a pool cue. That's always been my go to it, you know, if I'm ever in a bar, and there's a pool table, I'm looking for where that pool cue rack is, in case I need to know.
Craig Wharem:
Are you going to do that [00:38:04-00:38:05] pattern he did off the dance floor?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Those were solid movements, incredibly skilled throwing that thing around. I think, honestly, I think in the fight where they have the two of them. I think they can they did not do that character justice. I don't think it would have been as lopsided. Hmm.
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, I agree. I think the pool cue, like, to your point about weaponry and stuff in the bar fight, there would be more of it, I would think, you know, like, they didn't really showcase it when they the ones they did showcase for ones that didn't always the knife in the boot. You know, so right foot, you know, things like that, as opposed to like somebody just breaking a bottle and hitting you with it, you know, or, you know, things like that. So, I think one I want to know how he got so good at throwing those knives and like being that comfortable around knives. Because even with training knives, sometimes it freaks me out, you know, like, but too, I think that, you know, it's showcase for him that he again, just that he's stoic, he's unfazed. He just understands that you can't rattle him. Sure.
Andrew Adams:
My problem with the pool cue seen was Dalton sees this person who is clearly skilled with a staff, in this case, a pool cue who has a long-range weapon in his hand. And he says to his three or four guys that are not nearly as skilled as he is. Yeah, go ahead. You go get your butt kicked. Like how did he think that was going to end any other way?
Jeremy Lesniak:
We've all had instructors who have had us do things that didn't work out well for us. In the name of education. Yeah, okay. Sure. I mean, that's my theory.
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, I mean, to me that’s him not being the best manager right like obviously, he probably, if I'm looking at that I'm putting myself in that place. The only reason I would send four people out there is so I could gauge this guy's skill better. And well that's it. And that's not necessarily a good thing to do. That's just the only reason I can see him doing what he did.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Or last scene, we ready to go to the last scene? Yep. So that that big kind of fight at the mansion, the big house, whatever we want to call it.
Craig Wharem:
The [00:40:26-00:40:27] scene? That's what I call it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure. Sure, yeah. Again, we have the use of surroundings he pushes stuff polar bear over on someone. And then we have really, again, an asset and a liability for him. He again, is going to the knee where he can, but he does an absolutely abysmal job against it. Jimmy the boss guy?
Andrew Adams:
No, no, Jimmy was the guy who ripped the throat out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, who was the kind of mafia ask guy what was his name?
Andrew Adams:
Ah, crap, I can't remember.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Anyway, the big bad guy. He picks up spears and he throws a spear. And then he grabs another one and pretty much just starts beating Dalton with it. And Dalton's like I don't know what to do about this. And so again...
Andrew Adams:
Wesley.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you, Wesley. So that that might be a possibility, using a long range weapon that doesn't enter into my kind of full strategy, because I'm not generally expecting I'm going to have access to weapons, that that kind of finishes up my notes. Do you guys have anything else before we unpack what we would do?
Craig Wharem:
Now, the only other thing that I note in that final scene, the reason I called the [00:41:46-00:41:47] scene is because he takes out like, what, 20 people but he does it so stealthily that no one sees him coming, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Or hears it somehow. Yeah.
Craig Wharem:
And that polar bear bait is my favorite part. It makes it a part time It makes me laugh. Every time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Andrew?
Andrew Adams:
I don't think I had anything else. Okay. I will say I do laugh at the polar bear scene every time and they're very, very, very end of the movie when they're like, do you have anything? It's like, a bear fell on me. Funny.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It’s a great point. Andrew, what do you go for? So, if you, you know, if you had to kind of codify what you would do. If you were fighting James Dalton, what would you do?
Andrew Adams:
So I would as discussed earlier, like his long-range attacks, were not very effective. So, I would look to stay more on the outside, I would use his rationale against him in terms of the knees. Because one thing I noticed is Wade Garrett. And this was really quick head rewind that wants to just make sure I did see that correctly. You know, he was an old guy moved a little slower. But he checked the kicks that came into him, like, he did his leg and he checked those kicks. Which if anybody has ever been kicked in the legs before checking, it makes a huge difference in terms of the damage done to you. Dalton didn't check kicks at all right? Not once, so I would be looking to use lock myself using long range attacks. I would be on the lookout for that. That stupid spin kick that he does not this thing kicks are stupid. He did them in a stupid way. And I would use that as an as an grounds to gain some ground on him to get past the boxing range. Like I like you guys to I don't want to be in this range, you know, not with him. No, no, not with him. But if I could gain the distance and take him down, even if it's just throw him down and get in a kick, and then get back out. You know, if I didn't have a good enough position to get into a ground mount of some sort, just take them down, get out of there and do it again. That would be what I would like to do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Craig, what would you do?
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, so I like your idea, Andrew of like, working those kicks in the leg tracks and stuff on I would close that gap. And in boxing match, one of the things I noticed is again, he didn't necessarily have that straight line, he almost circled things around a lot. So, the faster way to get past a circular line is a straight line, right? So, as he's doing those circular lines, that's where I'm using kind of a kung fu background I have in the Wing Chun and I'm doing those chain strikes and I'm kind of checking in trying to control him until I get to a place where I can clinch him. Once I can clinch him and I've got control. It's going to be a matter of just getting him down into a pin and then again, no pain compliance, so I'm just working on getting into some sort of choking situation where the market just put him to sleep like it. He strikes me in everything we've saw that if he got broken to the ground and someone is trying to pin him, he'd roll onto his stomach to try and get back up. I don't think that he has a lot of ground experience. So instead of trying to push me off and get me into a guard, he would try to roll himself over and push me off. And when he tries, that would be the best time to try to go in for those those controlling positions that way. Yeah, I think that's what I would do. I could see that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, he's got some reach on me, he's got, I mean, not currently. But, you know, if we were, we had the same body fat, he definitely has some weight on me, I get a little bit more than he does. But I would be attacking legs, you know, I try to stay kicking range, I would be encouraging him to kick because I feel like his stances, and his kicks were the weakest part of what he had. On the on the stand side, what I'm talking about is when he when he would take those sharp angles, Craig, like you talked about, and he would cut out to the side, he was loaded so low, that if that punch, that kind of upper cut hook, combo thing that he was throwing, if that didn't hit, he was totally set up for a kick in the face. Now in order for him to throw that I'd have to be close enough. So, I'm not going to be looking for that I don't want to be there. You know, just like Andrew said. So, I would be trying to play that line getting him to try to kick me for two reasons. I'm looking to attack the legs, frustrate him, punch him in the shin, punch him in the knee, check the kick, kick the leg, you know, do all those sorts of mean things that kind of extend it with the hopes that he would end up throwing one of those kind of really interesting half spinny sort of pushing side back kick things, because those were telegraphed so much. And there was so little power until the end range that as soon as I saw that coming, I'm going in, I'm going to take that kick, and I'm locked around his throat at that point. I think I could cover that ground at that point. That would be my best bet. And then you use his technique against it. Right, and then I would rip his throat out. And I would I would use it as a straw. Wow. Oh, man. Wow, there we go. Do we have anything we want to add? We went deep on this hill a lot deeper than we went on the last one.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. The thing I would add is, you know, my wife had another way she would fight in which would be to just be Wade Garrett. Because apparently, he taught him everything he knew. So, to be on his...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Punch.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, exactly. And then the last thing I would add is, I would I wouldn't want to fight him. I want to be his friend. He was cool.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He was a cool guy. Here's a good guy. He didn't like bullies. You know, he did. He didn't like fighting. He just didn't like people taking advantage of others. Yeah, pretty solid hero. I understand why people like this film.
Andrew Adams:
And it's one of the you know, there are lots of movies in the world that have martial arts. There are not a lot of movies that have crossed over into other pop culture references. You know, obviously Karate Kid is probably one of the biggest right? I would agree. But this one has a fair number of crossovers. We talked about family guy we talked the TV show house, the drama hospital show, like there have been other ones too. So.
Craig Wharem:
Yeah, it's a pretty I feel like if you say the word Roadhouse, everyone instantly thinks of Patrick Swayze. And knows the movie, even if they hadn't seen it like, yes. They just know it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. All right. Good to close up, you guys. All right. Well, hey, everybody. Thank you. I appreciate you watching or listening. And if you have a suggestion for the next movie, we should tackle let us know. You know, drop us an email. Email me jeremy@whistlekick.com. Of course, you can follow us on social media. We are @whistlekick everywhere you can imagine. You know, we do all kinds of stuff, all kinds of different podcast episodes, check them out at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. And if you want to see the full extent of the things that we offer, from our products, to our product, products to projects, services, and more, go to whistlekick.com. Once again, Craig, I want to thank you for being our guest host for this episode coming on. Yeah, you were great. Awesome. Appreciate it. Andrew, thanks as always, for all that you do for this show. And for everything else.
Andrew Adams:
No problem.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. Let's close it out. Until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.