The box copy hints that this is an action-comedy adventure, but don't be fooled. There really isn't much comedy and the action is pretty intermittent for an adventure movie, but the two lead performances make the exercise watchable. Spoiled preppie Judge Reinhold and cool drifter Willem Dafoe make a likable mismatched pair of traveling buddies, and once you get past the odd logic that Dafoe as Johnny would bother taking his social opposite under his wing to show him the rules of survival on the road, the movie passes pleasantly. The wide open, largely empty desert makes a nice setting and is well used as a place of isolation, where a philosophical loner like Johnny can find solitude to think. The viewer gets slowly sucked into Johnny's view of the world and begins to cheer Reinhold in his philosophical make-over, and leaves with a positive glow. The movie is neither particularly striking or memorable visually, but the chemistry between the two actors makes the time pass amiably and it can be revisited to get back the same good feeling. This is one of those movies that is more a mood altering substance than entertainment, but as such it's nice.
Review of Roadhouse 66
