Don't Mess with the Swayze

You don’t really hear people diss Swayze’s mullet. Even on the weekly Peachtree showings of Dirty Dancing, his hair never really feels ludicrous. It’s just hair, sure full of body, but it’s never really of a style. Billy Ray and the Hasselhoff, those guys’ have straight-up, funny hair.

Swayze's career is the same in a sense. It verges on comical (think Estevez), but at the same time it’s serious and not remotely laughable. Consider the “comical” in his oeuvre: Dirty Dancing, Youngblood, and Road House. And consider the serious, or pseudo-serious: Donnie Darko, To Wong Foo, and Ghost.

That famous SNL sketch of Swayze in a dance-off against Chris Farley for a Chippendale’s job might explain the Swayze way-ze. Next to Farley’s absurd teddy bear, Swayze could have been that guy, that guy you can’t leave alone with your girl. But, he’s never that guy. Swayze’s always guy code. A bit better looking than average, but always with that Spaghetti Western swag. He’s the guy you’d follow into battle and the guy who could be your Iceman (or your Maverick, depending).

Swayze, like Keanu and Clooney to a lesser extent, seems to be playing himself rather than really acting. With all the coverage about his battle with cancer, it’s even harder not to equivocate Swayze with Bodhi or Dalton. He defiantly told Barbara Walters that he probably only has two years to live, but he did it action-star style. And to Access Hollywood, he said: “I’m cooking. I’m a miracle, dude. I don’t know why.” Oh and during the filming of his new show, The Beast, he had radiation therapy sessions between tapings.

There’s not much you can say about the guy. He's gangsta. Dude’s like the wind.

My favorite Swayze performances:


Point Break

This is the role he’ll be remembered for. Bodhi: The bank robbing, surfing, sky-diving John the Baptist.

The film itself, directed by undisputed number one female director Kathryn Bigelow, is a formal masterpiece with that best-of-all time foot chase, the half-dozen climaxes, and the sky diving scene (oh and that’s Swayze doing his own parachuting).

The movie’s deliberately hokey, so plot and drama stays out of the way of the action set pieces. The dialogue is fast, but no one’s going to mistake it for Mamet. However, Swayze does put some pathos into his lines. No one else could have brought the same Biblical prophet swag. Not only does his Bodhi seduce Keanu, he also seduces the audience, their eyes on him only whenever he’s onscreen.



Road House

Here, he plays Dalton, the best cooler/bouncer in the biz. Dalton is the nightclub Gordon Ramsay, whipping staffs into shape. This time it’s the Double Deuce where there’s too much clocking and brawling, not enough dancing.

Road House is a fun and completely ludicrous movie, and Swayze knows it. He has fun with it, too. Like Bodhi, the role calls for a type of physicality mixed with equal parts contemplativeness and saintliness. Dalton rips out guys’ throats and does Yoga, talks philosophy and drops action-movie one-liners.

If Swayze truly does play himself in his movies, Dalton is the Swayze-est of all.



Donnie Darko

The role of motivational speaker Jim Cunningham is the perfect late-career role. In this surreal 80s period piece, he's a less freaky looking, but actually more freaky Tony Robbins.

Here again, Swayze plays a charismatic guru. People can’t help but follow. In a hilarious subversion of the Swayzian hero, though, Cunningham is not an actual prophet, but a (SPOILER ALERT) pervert with a dungeon full of kiddie porn.

It’s mostly a comedic role, but Swayze again doesn’t let it be just that. There’s a fantastic 2-second shot of Cunningham in his dungeon, a pained look on his face. With just that, Swayze injects the tragic, and we understand that Cunningham acknowledges his natural and inescapable perversion.