I come to praise Patrick Swayze, not bury him. He was our B-level action star with romantic credibility, and we forgave him for Dirty Dancing _and _Ghost _because he gave us _Roadhouse _and _Red Dawn. The martial arts crossover was inevitable—execs don’t see any difference between ballet and kung fu — and the expressionless acting worked for each Swayzean archetype: the greaser bad boy, the misunderstood rebel with a heart of gold, the mourning husband, the stoic bouncer, and the post-apocalyptic warrior.
Did I say post-apocalyptic? Indeed. Swayze tried it all. He was the Michael Caine of genre cinema. 30-somethings fetishize Red Dawn _but they should be dropping references to 1987’s _Steel Dawn: