Director Doug Liman’s Road House (2024) is full of affection for the original, woke-free, and does plenty right — especially in the first 45 minutes. Then, it begins to drag through an unnecessarily convoluted plot. Finally, it becomes an A-movie with a massive, painfully obvious CGI set-piece involving exploding yachts, fights on runaway speedboats, and no respect for gravity. That’s when my brain decided there would be no rewatch.
This is the exact opposite of my response in the summer of ’89. What a summer that was. My pretty wife was passed out in the back seat while I sat outside on a lawn chair sipping PBR, smoking a Newport, and watching the glory of Road House (1989) play out across a drive-in movie screen. I knew I was watching something special. Back then, I was alone in those affections. Road House took all kinds of critical hell, including some Golden Raspberry Awards. Time, however — and countless cable reruns — made the indisputable case for just what drive-in classic director Rowdy Herrington and producer Joel Silver brought to life.
The remake (also produced by action-maven Silver and currently available to stream on Amazon Prime) is NOT what we’ve come to expect from leftist Hollywood these days. Most of the people who create “entertainment” today hate us and get off on dumping all over everything we love (see: Wars, Star). Liman isn’t interested in apologizing for the original by making Dalton gay or trans or an Eskimo or some virtue-signaling PC Avenger. Instead he’s Jake Gyllenhaal, a former UFC fighter at the end of his rope. Being a bouncer was not on his dance card, but $20,000 for four weeks of work ends up being too good to turn down, so he’s off to Key West to clean up a place called “The Road House” — which allows for some good-natured (but not self-referential) jokes about how the original’s title is spelled incorrectly.
What really works is Gyllenhaal’s performance. Rather than ape The Mighty Patrick Swayze’s cool intensity, Gyllenhaal personifies the stoic stranger and lives the famous motto not spoken in the remake: “Be nice until it’s time to not be nice.” Gyllenhaal’s Dalton comes off as a sweet, kind of loopy guy. Still, you can sense the damage inside of him, the mystery, and that’s what great actors do—wordlessly convey something that draws you in and makes you want to know that secret. (And there is a secret).
The bar’s beleaguered owner is Frankie (Jessica Williams), who’s funny and charming but disappears too soon as the villains take over. I hoped they would combine the original characters and make Frankie the love interest. That role went to Daniela Melchior as Ellie (a doctor—like Kelly Lynch in the original), who’s not given much to do and throws off no sexual sparks in the presence of our hero.
The movie’s sense of place works, especially in the early scenes. You can practically feel those Key West breezes. No women beat up men. Dalton is actually allowed to be chivalrous on a couple of occasions. For the first 45 minutes, a movie I expected to hate won me over entirely.
Then, it started to feel a little long and unnecessarily complicated. To begin with, there’s no arch-villain, no Ben Gazzara. Billy Magnussen plays Ben Brandt, the wannabe developer orchestrating all the trouble, but he seems to answer to his dad, who’s in prison. We keep waiting to meet Dad, but he’s a no-show. Then Conor McGregor shows up to chew the scenery at Dad’s request, which downgrades Brandt, and we don’t know who to hate the most.
On top of that, there’s a corrupt sheriff played by the always-welcome Joaquim de Almeida. Is he the boss? I don’t know, but he’s Ellie’s dad for no reason. Then, a suitcase of money shows up from out of nowhere.
There is a purity to the original Road House. It is what it is — a modern-day Western about a troubled loner who gets in the way of a man who intends to own the town. Best of all, there was that father/son dynamic between Swayze’s Dalton and Sam Elliott’s scruffy Wade Garrett – a mentoring relationship that gave Road House its beating heart. That relationship is removed entirely from the remake, which might explain why it feels so empty, like nothing is happening other than brawls and boat chases.
The fight scenes grow increasingly tiresome as CGI is used to soup them up and feign single takes.
Also missing is the sex. The original Road House is sexy. The remake is sexless. I surely do miss objectifying a good-looking woman.
But back to the pluses…
In addition to avoiding 99-pound women punching out men and all the other political garbage ruining movies today, Road House (2024) THANKFULLY avoids nostalgia—no cheap callbacks, no cameos, and none of those exhausting moments created to make you feel “smart” for remembering the original so well. So…
Road House (2024) is worth a watch. But that’s about all.
Borrowed Time is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available on Kindle and Audiobook.
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