Road House review – our house is a very, very, very bland house

Doug Liman directs Jake Gyllenhaal in this mirthless unnecessary reimagining of the 1989 Swayze classic.

One of my favourite pieces of media from this century is a YouTube clip which originated in 2016, entitled ‘British Lads Hit Each Other With Chair‘. In it, a shirtless lad in jeans and trainers gives another shirtless lad (in running shorts) a little kiss before taking a swig from a bottle of wine, which he smashes on the floor, also throwing his cigarette to the ground. Another lad scampers into frame and picks the cigarette up. The lad in running shorts then proceeds to hit the lad in jeans across the back with a folding garden chair for a bit, before he collapses. In 67 seconds they provide as close to perfect depiction of modern male masculinity as currently exists in British cinema. To wit, the video demonstrates the enduring, mesmerising power of seeing someone getting duffed up.

David Lee Henry and co-writer Hilary Henkin understood this when they penned the script for Road House back in the 1980s – as did Rowdy Herrington, who directed the film in a remarkable demonstration of nominative determinism. Although the 1989 actioner starring Patrick Swayze as a stoic cooler working in a rough-n-ready Missouri bar was a critical flop, it’s since earned cult classic status, as well as the honour of becoming a running joke on Family Guy. It makes sense that some 35 years later Amazon would want to remake the film – this is par for the course in Hollywood nowadays, with Point Break, Flatliners, Total Recall and Red Dawn among the 80s/90s cult films that received disappointing revamps in the 2000s.

But the set-up for the Road House remake wasn’t without merit. Doug Liman certainly has form for action, having directed the excellent Edge of Tomorrow and The Bourne Identity, and Jake Gyllenhaal is always a pretty compelling screen presence, particularly in roles where he has a chance to let his freak flag fly. While it seemed unlikely a remake could capture the original’s strange blend of earnestness and satisfying OTT brutality, Gyllenhaal has the sort of wild card energy that’s just crazy enough to pull it off.

The problem with Road House lies chiefly with the new script: a lifeless, jokeless dirge from apparent first-timers Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry. They transport the drama to the Florida Keys, which in theory sounds like a perfect setting for a zany beat-em-up movie, but feels inert and ambiguous aside from one crocodile joke (we don’t even get to see the fucking crocodile). There’s no sense of what makes the Keys such a unique and strange place in the United States – a missed opportunity given the enduring legacy of the Florida Man.

Stepping in for Swayze is Gyllenhaal’s Elwood Dalton, a retired UFC powerhouse with – you guessed it! – a dark past. He accepts a job at The Road House, owned by tough-talking Frankie (Jessica Williams) after his car is totalled by a train. The new gig involves keeping the patrons in order at her beachfront bar, where local rich boy Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen) is stirring up trouble in a bid to force Frankie out so he can buy her property and build a luxury holiday resort (it’s always a luxury holiday resort!) Like recent Jason Statham vehicle The Beekeeper, the film positions a young, snot-nosed brat as the villain in a move which is becoming de rigueur for studio movies, despite how ‘Old Man Yells At Cloud’ it feels as a plot device.

Remarkably, Magnussen – once a true delight in Game Night – is upstaged by former UFC fighter Conor McGregor, who makes his acting debut as the psychotic mob fixer Knox, a coked-up Mastiff in human form with an admirable sense of job satisfaction. While McGregor probably didn’t have to do much beyond his existing UFC persona and doesn’t seem able to decide if his character is American, Irish, or a secret, third thing, he does ham it up with a refreshing commitment. Gyllenhaal, usually spirited, seems quite lifeless next to him.

Shoehorned in is a plot about Dalton’s tentative romance with local doctor Ellie (Daniela Melchior) which isn’t given enough screentime to feel important and a corny side plot about Dalton’s friendship with a local bookstore owner and his precocious daughter. The only character with any appeal is meek tough guy Moe, played by Arturo Castro with excellent comedic delivery.

But no one really comes to a film like Road House for the plot. They watch it for the same reason I watch British Lads Hit Each Other With Chair. Perhaps Road House’s ultimate crime is the lack of fighting – and how much time the characters spend not even in the Road House. Why is there an extended Mexican standoff aboard a yacht? Why do we have multiple scenes of Gyllenhaal having night terrors in his tiny underpants on his dilapidated houseboat? If you’re going to call your film Road House, I do feel a solid 90% of it should take place in the Road House. We have little sense of the building as a pillar of the community, or of the people who make it what it is. Frankie keeps repeating the bar is important to her because it belonged to her uncle, but there’s no plausible explanation as to why she is prepared to pay a man $5000 in cash a week to defend it.

Perhaps I could forgive these flaws if there was any entertainment value, but Road House’s limp, jokeless dialogue leaves the viewer plenty of time to consider how lazy the whole affair feels. After quite a fun opening scene, the film meanders through its generic conflict and fairly uninspired fight choreography. Only the film’s final bar fight has any real energy to it, and even then there’s a sense that it could have been more integrated into the structure of the Road House itself. Instead, the filmmakers opt to just drive a couple of vehicles through the building, in a narrative move that evokes a six-year-old playing with toy cars rather than a multi-million-dollar film.

It’s a shame too, because I truly believe that Road House had potential. While he can’t provide the same feline cool that came naturally to Swayze, Gyllenhaal does a good line in freaky weirdos, but the film seems too cautious of alienating a mainstream audience (presumably the same crowd who are drawn to McGregor and the UFC’s involvement) to take any great swings in script or execution. You’re much better off with the 1989 original – and maybe a few rewatches of British Lads Hit Each Other With Chair.

Published 16 Mar 2024

Tags: Doug Liman Jake Gyllenhaal Road House