Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Dalton in the Road House remake. Photo / Laura Radford, Amazon Content Services LLC
Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Dalton in the Road House remake. Photo / Laura Radford, Amazon Content Services LLC
Review by Karl Puschmann
Karl Puschmann is Culture and entertainment writer for the New Zealand Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
The remake of Road House might have seemed like a bad idea without Patrick Swayze but it’s surprisingly awesome, with over-the-top action and a cheesy charm.
My first thought when hearing Road House was being remade was dismissive. No Swayze? No deal.
The late, great actor Patrick Swayze is the sole reason the rowdy, rockin’ 1989 original movie is so damn good. The intensity of his acting, his fighting and his perfectly sculpted hair elevate what should be cheesy action schlock into a cheesy action classic.
The premise is simple. Swayze starred as Dalton, a bouncer and philosopher. He gets hired to clean up a violent roadhouse where brutal bar fights are served up as regularly as cold beers. He clocks in, kicks butt with increasing brutality and severity for two hours, and then the movie ends with one of cinema’s all-time great fatalities at Swayze’s blood-soaked hands.
However, there’s no escaping the fact the film is a relic of its time. A highly enjoyable relic yes, but a relic nevertheless. It seemed a ridiculous movie to remake. Especially in this enlightened year of 2024. But that didn’t stop Prime Video from giving it a fighter’s shot.
The new Road House, which is streaming now, is awesome. Photo / Laura Radford, Amazon Content Services LLC
Let me just get this out of the way; I was wrong. The new Road House, which is streaming now, is awesome. It’s gloriously stupid. Fantastically dumb. Gleefully violent. Road House is not just over the top, it’s over the bloody moon.
Every time I thought it couldn’t get any more moronic, it did. But in the best way possible. For example, every time someone’s head is smashed into the bar’s piano it makes a comical musical chord. Later, there’s a fistfight in the middle of the ocean. Another dude gets eaten by a crocodile.
Road House is simply big dumb fun, and I love it for that.
Wisely, it didn’t deviate much from the original. Dalton is now a former UFC fighter, which makes sense considering how much of a threat he has to be. He gets hired to clean up a violent roadhouse where brutal bar fights are served up as regularly as cold beers, etc etc.
In the original, the roadhouse was a scungy dive with a rough clientele, so it made sense fights were constantly breaking out. The roadhouse in the remake is in a tourist town, overlooks the water and is styled like a tiki bar. Hired goons may be regularly coming in to start fights in an effort to force the owner to sell, but the movie shows fights breaking out regardless of whether the bikers are there or not.
The remake shows fights breaking out regardless of whether the bikers are there or not. Photo / Laura Radford, Amazon Content Services LLC
It’s a small nitpick and there’s not much else to complain about - perhaps at two hours, it’s a bit long. A tight 90 minutes would have made it damn near perfect. But considering it’s essentially all fight scenes, I’m giving it a pass. The movie comes out swinging and doesn’t let up. The breathers between its bouts are mercifully short, hydrating the plot before jumping back into the ring for another round.
Slipping into Dalton’s too-tight jeans and luscious hair is Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal. While he’s no Swayze, he’s still great in the role and is clearly having a ball as a buffed-up action star. He’s hard-hitting and believable in his constant fight scenes, and delivers his one-liners with the seriousness they need to be successfully pulled off while also acknowledging he’s in on the joke.
Like Swayze’s Dalton, Gyllenhaal’s also insists on being nice before being extremely not nice, and the film gets a lot of its comedic mileage out of this personality quirk.
Dalton’s main threat in the movie is the real-life UFC champion and professional boxer Conor McGregor, who brings a cartoonish menace to the film. He borders on going too far with it at times, which is saying something in a flick like this, but is a total smash at being the sort of action movie bad guy you want to see get pummeled by our hero at the end. In that way, his over-the-top mannerisms are authentic to the genre.
UFC champion and professional boxer Conor McGregor brings a cartoonish menace to the film. Photo / Laura Radford, Amazon Content Services LLC
Which brings me to my biggest complaint about the new Road House. Swayze’s legendary and iconic signature finishing move is not replicated here. Gyllenhaal’s is all right, I guess, but it doesn’t come close to the sheer violent audacity of the original movie.
Yes, it’s a purist complaint and is the only real disappointment in a film that KO’d my cynicism over its very existence and left me smiling all the way through.
Road House is not big or clever or even that good, really. But by embracing its cheesy action roots so thoroughly, it can’t help but be a helluva lot of fun and a wonderfully brainless throwback to the entire 80s action genre.
