Patrick Swayze’s Best Fight Scene Was In Francis Ford Coppola’s 41-Year-Old PG Movie (Not Road House)

While it’s easy to think that Patrick Swayze’s finest career fight scene would be in the bloody and brutal 1989 classic Road House, his best rumble sequence is actually in a 41-year-old PG movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Interest in the original Road House movie renewed thanks to Prime Video’s remake of the same name starring Jake Gyllenhaal and an updated Road House cast. The remake was incredibly well-received, though the new Road House’s record-breaking success called for comparisons to and recollections of the classic that made it all possible.

The original was a classic for many reasons, one being that it had movie and TV megastar Patrick Swayze in the lead as James Dalton, a bouncer and martial artist hired as security for the troubled NYC club Double Deuce. Road House’s rough-and-tumble plot line and adrenaline-pumping fight scenes, underscored by its quintessential 80s soundtrack, were made all the more entertaining by Swayze’s iconic performance, in which he did most of the combative stunts asked of his character. It’s nearly effortless to pin Swayze’s finest fight scene to the action classic, but his best occurred in another 80s movie staple.

Patrick Swayze’s “Rumble” In The Outsiders Is Greater Than Road House’s Fight Scenes

The Greasers vs. The Socials Battle Was Greater Than Any Road House Fight

Swayze starred in the 1983 movie adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders, which charted the socioeconomic divide between the working and upper-middle classes of the 1960s by depicting the conflict between two rival teenage gangs. Throughout the Coppola-directed movie, the greasers, who represent the working class, and the Socials, who represent the upper middle, are perpetually at odds until circumstances escalate, and a Social member is killed. Owing to what’s at stake, including the lives the teenagers have yet to experience, the ensuing battle between The Outsiders’ two gangs felt far more critical than any Road House fight.

Swayze played Darrel “Darry” Curtis in The Outsiders’ cast of characters, the older brother and assumed guardian of greasers Ponyboy and Sodapop Curtis. In a prideful show of support, Darry takes part in The Outsiders’ epic fight, or rumble, to help settle the matter of the fallen Social member, however unconventional. What transpires is an unhinged, large-scale nighttime brawl that, though not as bloody or as choreographed as his Road House combat, is Swayze’s best fight scene because of its purpose in The Outsiders’ depiction of socioeconomic contention and his meaningful role within it.

Darry’s Rumble In The Outsiders Is More Meaningful Than Road House’s Fights

The Rumble Was Intensified By Family, Friends, And Differences In Life Circumstances

Despite the responsibilities his caretaker role calls for, Swayze’s Darry bucks his duties to stand beside his brothers in The Outsiders’ rumble. Darry is one of many drawn to the scene because the rumble is not just a regular fight but an avenue for the greasers to express their loyalty to one another, their agitation about their socioeconomic status in life, and their contempt for not being able to escape the confines of Tulsa, Oklahoma while the Socials they grew up with are better suited to. Consequently, the rumble, while irresponsible, is significant for most of the boys in attendance.

More specifically for Darry, the rumble entails fighting against Socials younger than him and some Socials who had been his former friends in grade school when football was more important than socioeconomic status. The rumble also signifies that Darry fights in solidarity with his younger brothers while concurrently trying to maintain custody over them. Compared to the brawls found in Road House, where Dalton’s fights are pretty brief and much more trivial, Darry’s rumble in The Outsiders is significantly more meaningful and very beautifully directed.

Road House Still Has Patrick Swayze’s Most Iconic Fight Scene

Dalton And Jimmy Reno’s Fight Will Always Be Legendary

The Outsiders’ rumble may have meaning and relevance on its side, but one climactic Road House fight has memorability going for it. In Road House’s ending, Dalton engages in hand-to-hand combat with Jimmy Reno, a henchman of crime lord and principal Road House antagonist, Brad Wesley. The fight seems even-keeled before Reno stoops to pulling out a gun, giving him an unfair advantage over Dalton.

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However, quick on his feet in the matter of life and death, Dalton counters with a defensive measure that still has the ability to shock viewers thirty-five years later. Dalton swiftly kicks the gun out of Reno’s grasp and then proceeds to rip the henchman’s throat out with his bare hands. The moment is not only outrageous and pertinent to Dalton’s survival but one of the many reasons Road House has remained an action classic throughout the decades.