Prime Time: Road House (2024)

I was looking forward to Road House since I saw the first trailer for it, a trailer that showcased just how much time star Jake Gyllenhaal had been putting in at the gym. Yes, the original film is a beloved bit of cheese, but it’s no untouchable classic. Let’s not forget that it already has a sequel that very few people care for.

Gyllenhaal plays Dalton, a legendary figure who is hired by Frankie (Jessica Williams) to help sort out the trouble she has been having in her Florida bar. Dalton rolls in to Glass Key (the name of the area, and one of many fun little nods to other films) and starts cleaning house, but it isn’t long until he realised that there’s something more going on. Frankie’s bar is being targeted by thugs who work for a rich douchebag (Ben Brandt, played by Billy Magnussen). And if his thugs keep failing to achieve the desired result then it will soon be time for the much more dangerous Knox (Conor McGregor) to swagger in and start smashing everything up. A storm is brewing, but that doesn’t stop Dalton from making time to enjoy the company of a local doctor, Ellie (Daniela Melchior).

There are things to pick at here, and plenty of things that viewers may dislike, particularly when it comes to the way of staging and shooting some of the fight scenes, but I cannot think of any way this could have been a better remake/reworking of the original film. The tone is similarly fun, punctuated with brutal violence (of course), the lead character is always looking to defuse any situation before things get physical, and the plotting manages to replicate what we’ve seen before without feeling like a carbon copy.

Well done to relatively new writers Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry for crafting a script that changes enough to modernize the idea while also remaining respectful and admiring of the original film. The central concept may be nonsense, and our lead spends a lot of time smirking at people who don’t realise what is about to happen to them, but at no point are viewers made to think they are watching something outright laughable. Everyone is kept safe alongside a confident main character, but the danger keeps piling up around them, and his own darkness is something he doesn’t want to tap into.

Director Doug Liman handles the whole thing quite well. Aside from some computer trickery that doesn’t always work in the fight scenes, and a frustrating handful of night-time moments that don’t seem to be lit as well as they should, it’s generally slick entertainment, helped massively by Gyllenhaal being so committed to his role.

That commitment can be shown in every defined muscle, with the actor displaying a physique normally shown in anatomy textbooks that display the musculature of the human body. It is a hell of a look, and Gyllenhaal backs it up with a physicality and personality that I am sure Swayze would have liked to see. It’s a winning performance, and the best thing in the film. Magnussen is a lot of fun as the villain who doesn’t like to get his own hands dirty, the kind of person you know is failing as his hair becomes more messed up in the middle of some unfolding carnage, and McGregor . . . hmmmmm, I think he is good at doing what he is asked to do. It’s definitely a difficult performance to recommend though, as he is asked to be the kind of cocky and careless menace who is unleashed in the second half of the movie like an angry Rottweiler that has been flicked in the testicles and then let off the chain. Melchior is fine in the least interesting role, and the role that feels most like the writers tried a bit too hard to keep a template from the original film, Williams is good, if a bit underused, and there are decent supporting turns from Lukas Gage, Joaquim de Almeida, Hannah Love Lanier, Darren Barnet, JD Pardo, Arturo Castro (scene-stealing and hilarious), and even a cameoing Post Malone at the very start of the film.

I never thought this was going to surpass, or even equal, the first film, but it’s not as if everyone here got together to remake Citizen Kane. A little perspective is a good thing. I love Road House, but that is just as much to do with nostalgia and the unbeatable power of Sam Elliott’s beard as it is to do with the film itself. This remake lacks both of those ingredients, and also lacks a decent selection of soundtrack choices, but I still had a lot of fun with it. I think people should give it a chance, and I think it will be judged less harshly by viewers who can separate the concept from their sentimental attachment to the original film.

7/10

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