‘Road House’ Review: Jake Gyllenhaal Can’t Rescue this Unnecessary Remake of the 80’s Bar Brawl Classic | SXSW 2024

It’s probably hard for many to imagine that 1989’s Road House, the movie starring the late Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliott about a professional bar bouncer, would be considered highbrow entertainment. On paper, it fits in the mold of other 1980s ultra masculine action films with superstars able to carry these projects on their good looks and ass kicking abilities. Over time, some, like Top Gun and Road House, have even become unintentional homoeroptic vibes, as well as having social, political messaging attached to them that make them more than just dumb meat-head action spectacles that were around the era too. They didn’t take themselves too seriously and that’s what made them unique. In reveling in its silliness from the opening scene, the original Road House is a wild, action-packed ride with plenty of nudity, kicks to the crotch, and a message about millionaires in power destroying small-town America and what it takes to save what is your own in this country of ours. Elevated trash, a term used a lot by one of our own writers on this site, Jay Ledbetter, comes to mind when thinking about the original film; a movie dumb on the surface but with a lot more on its mind when you dig a little deeper. That is not the case for Doug Liman’s remake of the classic 1980s film, which takes the bones of the original and picks at the meat just enough to make something that half resembles the superior cinema ride that came thirty-five years ago.

We follow Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal), a former MMA fighter who is running away from the mistakes of his past by fighting in underground matches for cash payouts. Every hit he takes sends a firm reminder of the championship fight that went south, as he lost control of himself in the Octagon, leading to the death of his opponent and a life since looking for someone to beat him up as punishment for what he did. But the problem for him is that no one wants to fight him because they know who he is and what he can do in the ring; case in point when we see a fighter (a shirtless Post Malone, no thank you) quit right before he is about to even take a chance at fighting Dalton. Looking on as this is going on is Frankie (Jessica Williams), an owner of a road house called “The Road House” (a minor sample of the originality and humor we find in this movie) located in the Florida Keys. Her bar has been under attack by local thugs, and she wants to hire Dalton, just for a month at five thousand dollars a week, to put an end to the chaos happening on a nightly basis. Though he refuses at first, Dalton, after trying to kill himself by parking his car on train tracks, changes his mind on both accounts and heads down to Glass Key, the small fictional town where The Road House is located.

Just like the original, when Dalton walks into the bar, it’s a mess, as loud live music is the backdrop to brawls on the dance floor, a staff who has accepted their fates, and no one to wrangle all of this in. As a group of biker goons starts to get violent towards Billy (an underutilized, humorous Lukas Gage), Dalton introduces himself to the whole team and just what he can do in a matter of seconds, as he not only single-handedly beats up all five bikers  but then drives them to the hospital because they need “medical attention” after the ass whooping he laid on them. Gyllenhaal, one of our finest actors working today, has the impossible job of filling in the shoes of the legendary Patrick Swayze, in one of the many roles he was remembered for. And to his credit, he does everything he can to balance the humor and charm needed to make Dalton our hero, while also exploring the rage built inside of him that the original wasn’t able to tap into. It is one of Gyllenhaal’s better performances in a while, one that is wasted by the effort of everyone else involved.

As Dalton gets checked for his bumps and bruises at the hospital, he meets the fiery doctor on call, Ellie (Daniela Melchior), and again, like the original film, they start to form a romance -. Melchior, a good actress best known for her breakout role in The Suicide Squad, has zero chemistry with Gyllenhaal. They try to make us believe that their romance is something we should be invested in, but over the course of the film, just like the characters at the bar, it becomes a half-baked, forgotten storyline that never reaches its full potential.

The only reason they seem to be together is convenience in the story, as Ellie’s father is the chief of police, who is being controlled like everyone else in the town by Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen), the son of a millionaire gangster who is responsible for all of the damage at The Road House and the reason Dalton was brought to town. He needs the bar to shut down so he can knock it down and build a resort for rich tourists, and use that as a front to smuggle drugs and money. But Brandt’s team has had no luck in stopping Dalton, as he has basically broken the bones of every henchman sent his way. So Brandt’s father, sitting in prison for reasons unknown, calls in Knox (UFC athlete Conor McGregor), an unorthodox, insane hitman, to take down Dalton and get rid of the bar once and for all.  Magnussen’s role in this film is the clinical definition of fine, as he gives just enough effort to tell he had a good time, but never elevated the material to be memorable. But McGregor is memorable for all the wrong reasons. In what seems like a rejected role for Jason Statham via the early 2000s, McGregor gives an uninspired, unintentionally hilarious performance as a psychotic version of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil.

Obviously nostalgia is the driving force for the existence of this remake, but for this property, the effort by director Doug Liman and screenwriters Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry just isn’t there, as the story starts to crumble in on itself within the last thirty minutes when Dalton goes full dark side of the force, trying to avenge the town he’s lived in for the last three weeks from the evil forces looking to control it. The self-serious tone of this Road House forgets the over-the-top, playful vibes of the original and suffers mightily because of it. But just because you throw in some decent action scenes (with some of the worst CGI in a modern action film we’ve seen in some time), it doesn’t make up for what feels like a creative team brought in to make a lifeless remake come to life. Every fight sequence features jarring camera movements, forcing the audience to feel like they are getting beat up like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robots injected with creatine. Given the relocation to a tropical destination for this version of Road House, the film should look and feel vibrant. Instead, the film’s entire visual composition looks like it was rendered  through a VR simulation. Even the titular “Road House” doesn’t even feel lived in or memorable, looking like a normal beach bar. From a production design standpoint, it doesn’t hold a candle to the iconic Double Deuce from the 1989 film, which we spend far more time in and spend more time getting to know everyone who works in than in the remake.

Films like Road House (2024) have no business being made if they aren’t going to elevate their previous incarnation and provide something interesting to be said or showcase action sequences that blow the audience away. Instead of being elevated trash, and forging a new status for itself within the canon, Liman’s dull remake is the opposite of that, simply just trash and doesn’t justify being made at all.

Grade: D

This review is from the 2024 SXSW Film Festival. Road House will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on March 21, 2024.