{"id":1549,"date":"2024-03-28T21:34:14","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T21:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/?p=1549"},"modified":"2024-03-28T21:34:21","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T21:34:21","slug":"road-house-2024-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/28\/road-house-2024-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Road House (2024) – Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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1989\u2019s Road House<\/em> is one of the greatest \u201cbad\u201d movies of the 80s. In fact, it\u2019s such a good bad movie, that it\u2019s not really a bad movie at all. It\u2019s a good\/bad\/good movie. There are so many fun moments, both intentionally and unintentionally. Citizen Kane<\/em> it ain\u2019t, but it does its job — it entertains, immensely. While I\u2019ll get to why 2024\u2019s Road House<\/em> ultimately failed for me, I have to say that director Doug Liman did a great job of adapting a good\/bad\/good movie with a knowing wink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a fundamental shift that makes the movie tick in a bit different way than the original. In 1989, Dalton was a smart bouncer — a cooler, who can cool guys down rather than having everything lead to a fight. He\u2019s a philosophy major that just happens to be a great fighter by virtue of being a bouncer. In 2024, Dalton is an MMA fighter who stumbles into being a bouncer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Both men say, \u201cNo one ever wins in a fight,\u201d but I only believe it when Patrick Swayze says it. I mean, if 2024 Dalton doesn\u2019t believe in fighting, why is he a professional fighter turned Wolverine barroom bare knuckle brawler? Seems like he\u2019s pretty okay with the idea of fighting. That modernizes things, but takes away a bit of the appeal and probably sews the seeds of its ultimate downfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But wait. I\u2019m getting ahead of myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me say that for the first 2\/3 of 2024 Road House, I was having a blast. My point about the update aside, Jake Gyllenhaal\u2019s Dalton is as tough as he is hilarious. There\u2019s a great scene early on (actually it felt cribbed from Reacher<\/em>, but whatever) where he has to take on a group of low-level thugs that have been terrorizing the bar. Rather than fighting, he is focused on finding out where the nearest hospital is so he knows where to take casualties. Once he gives the thugs a chance to back down — and they predictably refuse — he hands out the greatest set of bitch slaps since Lee Marvin in Point Blank<\/em>. There\u2019s nothing more emasculating than a good slap to the face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a side note, Gyllenhaal is one of the best parts of the movie, even if he brings a different energy than Swayze. He obviously worked hard in the gym because he\u2019s absolutely shredded. But it’s his usual bumbling weirdo vibe that sells it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set up of the movie is perfunctory but it traces over many of the right beats from 1989, making updates here and there for both modernization and diversity. I will note that they shed most of the love story and all of the Sam Elliot character, but there was enough going on that it didn\u2019t feel too missed (even though those friendships were at the heart of Road House). They also lose the Jeff Healey character; they use a variety of different (mostly really bad) bands, who I\u2019m guessing are real (bad) bands. But why not have someone like Brittany Howard from Alabama Shakes<\/em> in there? A great musician that can be a side character like Healey was? That\u2019s not the thing that sinks the movie, but it was a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a fun update of a great movie with some kinetic, well shot fight scenes and an engaging central performance by Gyllenhaal —  so, what\u2019s your damn problem? What\u2019s the downfall you keep alluding to? Why are you now referring to yourself in third person?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem comes in the last third of the movie and it\u2019s so bad that it ruined the entire movie for me. They say that if you have to screw up, do it at the beginning of the film, not the end. It\u2019s easy to make up for a weak start, but you can\u2019t make up for a poor ending when you leave a bad taste in the audience\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2\/3 of the way in, real MMA fighter Conor McGregor steps up as the main antagonist and the movie goes to shit. It\u2019s not that I mind McGregor himself — though he is overacting in all the worst ways here. However, it\u2019s less about him and more about how the film changes. Suddenly, this wry, funny, entertaining film becomes a base, dumb, mindless action movie with what amounts to a 40-minute MMA fight. There\u2019s also some rising action that includes boat fights like it wants to be Miami Vice or something. (Knight Boat! There\u2019s always a canal!) Liman takes 1989\u2019s funny, beautiful, somewhat gay-coded, Zen Road House movie and turns it into a meathead face pounding, soulless exercise in boredom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gyllenhaal switches gears from a likeable guy with some hidden trauma to a complete Travis Bickle psychopath, trying to coast on what we remember about Dalton and Swayze\u2019s charm. If you\u2019re still rooting for him by the end, you\u2019ve been cheering for a murderer. Maybe I\u2019m overthinking a Road House movie, but it reminded me of Michael Haneke\u2019s Funny Games<\/em>, when he flips the story to make you realize that the audience is complicit in the violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re a big fan of MMA, mindless action with no stakes, or Conor McGregor,you might disagree with me. As Dalton said in 1989, \u201cOpinions vary.\u201d But sadly, while I was all in for a good chunk it, the last third was so bad that it reached back and bitch slapped the rest of the movie, emasculating it like clueless thugs outside a dive bar.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1989\u2019s Road House is one of the greatest \u201cbad\u201d movies of the 80s. In fact, it\u2019s such a good bad movie, that it\u2019s not really a bad movie at all….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,57],"tags":[239,69,59,78,236,237,238],"class_list":["post-1549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-writing","tag-conor-mcgregr-road-house","tag-craig-silliphant","tag-movie-review","tag-movies","tag-road-house","tag-road-house-1989","tag-road-house-2024","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Road-House-Jake-Gyllenhaal.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1556,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549\/revisions\/1556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}