Brad Wesley may not seem like much of a details guy, considering how much of his business he delegates to his dubiously competent goon squad. But look at the butt of the knife that our good friend Gary Ketcham used to kill the already wounded and winded Wade Garrett. That’s a quarter, tails up—perhaps the very same quarter Brad Wesley flipped to decide whether to murder Wade or Dr. Elizabeth Clay. (Not that he communicated which person corresponded with heads or tails during the coin toss. See what I mean about how he doesn’t come across as much of a details guy?) Point is, this knife is always going to come up tails if used properly.
And use it properly Dalton does. When he gets the drop on Ketcham, he has just enough time to kick his shotgun and send his shot wild, then drop him to the floor. Ketcham reacts quickly, unsheathing his knife (which he’d recovered from Dalton’s car) and immediately adopting a knife-fighting stance. Showing steely resolve, Dalton dodges a few slashes, then kicks the knife out of Ketcham’s hands and straight up into the air. He grabs Ketcham, catches the knife after it makes its suspiciously leisurely descent, and jams it into his foe’s guts.
“Tails again,” he quips, and god help us, these are the last words Gary Ketcham will ever here. Imagine committing your life to a cause, in this case Brad Wesley’s control of a town full of old farts, and having that commitment lead you to a poetically just death, if by “poetically” you mean “on the level of a bathroom-wall limerick.” One needn’t like Katcham as a person in order to pity him.
Tags: dalton, fight scenes, gary, gary ketcham, goons, ketcham, road house