ROAD HOUSE (2024) review

written by: screenplay by Anthony Bagarozzi & Charles Mondry; story by Bagarozzi & Mondry, and R. Lance Hill
produced by: Joel Silver
directed by: Doug Liman
rated: R (for violence throughout, pervasive language, and some nudity)
runtime: 124 min.
U.S. release date: March 21, 2024 (exclusively on Amazon Prime)

“Nobody wins a fight.”

What is it about Patrick Swayze’s filmography that makes remaking any of his starring vehicles a dead-end proposition? Die-hard fans of the actor, myself included, will tell you that it’s because Swayze had a certain ineffable quality that no actor since has possessed—though I have argued that Channing Tatum has come the closest to being his heir apparent. Though he fronted some of the most macho films in history, Swayze embraced his vulnerable and feminine qualities in a way most male actors are terrified to emulate. His training as a dancer made him a dynamic film presence, one who could always draw your attention no matter what else was happening around him.

Though Swayze’s filmography seems eminently ripe to be remade, every attempt to do so has been an abject failure, from 2012’s “Red Dawn” to 2015’s “Point Break.” While those films had countless issues beyond lacking Swayze’s unique brand of star quality, it’s impossible to deny that he leaves a gaping hole in both remakes. And so it is with 2024’s “Road House,” the latest misguided attempt to modernize a film that effortlessly captured the exact moment in which it was made.

Swayze’s “Donnie Darko” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal steps into the lead role of Dalton, though he’s not playing the exact same character as Swayze. The original Dalton was a cooler who traveled around and cleaned up violent bars with a zen philosophy that included classic lines such as “Never underestimate your opponent” and “Pain don’t hurt.” Gyllenhaal’s Dalton is a disgraced UFC fighter who takes a job beating up people for five thousand dollars a week because he’s basically unqualified to do anything else with his life.

Dalton is hired by Frankie (Jessica Williams) to help drive out a violent element ruining her roadhouse bar, literally named Road House, in the Florida Keys. Much like in the original, the bad dudes wreaking havoc on her bar are doing so at the behest of a local rich scumbag—the delightfully sleazy Ben Gazzara 35 years ago gives way to spoiled rich kid Ben Brandt here, played by Billy Magnusson.

Screenwriters Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry think they’re being clever by constantly littering the floor of their film with breadcrumbs involving Brandt’s motives and Dalton’s backstory. They’re so overzealous in doing so, however, that only the densest of audience members won’t have pieced everything together by the time those reveals actually arrive. This lack of faith in the audience’s intelligence even extends to a bit involving a crocodile. The killer animal is mentioned twice in the span of five minutes, leading me to believe it would most assuredly come into play in the film’s climax. However, the payoff comes within 15 minutes of those mentions because Bagarozzi and Mondry don’t trust their audience enough to retain information for much longer than that time span.

1989’s “Road House” is also a dirty-ass movie, with omnipresent unprotected sex, impromptu stripteases, and lots of that trendy phrase, “the male gaze.” 2024’s “Road House” is shockingly chaste, with the only two sex scenes occurring off-screen and the only real intimacy coming from shirtless men throwing their bodies into one another in the film’s myriad bare-knuckle brawls. Director Doug Liman and his screenwriters seem to have overcompensated, creating a world in which the only way for men to release all of their pent-up sexual aggression is through fisticuffs.

A perfunctory love story with a doctor—Ellie, played by Daniela Melchior—is also ported over from the original, but it mainly serves to preserve Dalton’s heterosexual credentials, and she ends up being little more than third-act kidnap bait. This film is also shockingly violent, with Gyllenhaal’s Dalton personally amassing a body count well into the double digits, and barely five minutes go by without a bone violently being broken or a sharp implement piercing skin. Whatever moral stance the filmmakers took in excising sex and nudity from the film, they negate it entirely by amping up the viscerally realistic violence. At least they didn’t expect us to buy Ellie staying with Dalton after finding out he’s actually a vicious sociopath.

The film frequently feels digitally manipulated, with a number of techniques used to make the fight scenes look like they were done in a single take. It doesn’t help that it was clearly shot digitally, rather than on film. Still, it feels cheap and shoddy, which is a shame considering Liman effectively used digital filmmaking techniques in 2014’s “Edge of Tomorrow.”

While this hasn’t exactly been a rave review up until this point, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the single worst thing about the film. Professional MMA fighter Conor McGregor makes his acting debut here as Knox, a brutal psychopath sent by Brandt’s imprisoned father to take down Dalton once and for all finally. It’s the kind of role that Tom Hardy could have done in his sleep, which only goes to show the value of having an actor in such a major role as opposed to a professional fighter. He is hamming it up in a way that made me constantly question why any director would allow a performance this terrible to exist. It is one of the most miscalculated casting decisions in the history of cinema, and that’s the nicest way for me to get that point across.

Gyllenhaal has always been a talented actor but one who prefers to “show the work” as they say, rather than simply exist as a lived-in character. None of those tendencies are on display here, thankfully, and his change in demeanor for the third act is the best stretch in the film and his performance. However, he’s ultimately a better actor than this film deserves and mostly rises above what he’s been asked to do.

“Road House” is another in a long line of cautionary tales about the dangers of remaking a Patrick Swayze film. It’s a lose-lose proposition every single time, and there’s absolutely no reason for this film to exist, at least not with that title and basic plot framework. Had these filmmakers possessed an additional ounce of inspiration, they could have made a few tweaks to distance it from its vastly superior predecessor. Heaven help us all when some poor misguided soul tries to remake “Ghost” or “To Wong Foo,” they’re already doomed to fail.

RATING: *1/2