Now here’s something you don’t hear everyday, even if everyday you’re talking to villains. “Now c’mon Dalton,” Brad Wesley says as he prowls his trophy room. “This town is big enough for both of us.” He adds an entreaty to “let’s talk about this,” but I at least was stopped short by his assessment of the size of the town relative to the needs of himself and his enemy here. Frankly, I’ve never heard a villain say that this town is big enough for both of us. I mean, that kind of abrogates the need for villainy in the first place, does it not? Just as there are no ethical billionaires, there are no villains dedicated to properly apportioning a town, of any size, to themselves and their rivals.
It’s a particularly risible statement in the context of Road House, in which Brad Wesley has repeatedly told Dalton his presence wasn’t “working out,” and even asked his ex-wife Dr. Elizabeth Clay to get Dalton out of town for him, in between having his goons attempt to beat and kill him. For his part, Dalton has thwarted Brad Wesley’s machinations at every turn, and in the past 24 hours has murdered five of his men, so we know where he stands on the issue of the town’s bigness.
“This town is big enough for both of us” is a desperation play, is what it is. Wesley has every intention of plugging Dalton the moment he gets a clear shot, and simply needs to stall by keeping Dalton off-guard until that shot materializes. The weakness of the claim is perhaps our only outward indication that Wesley realizes he’s in a real jam here. It’s the statement of a man who’s not sure how big this town really is anymore.
Tags: brad wesley, fight scenes, road house