You know the film. It’s a film you have never heard of. The cast might be composed of actors you know and love or complete unknowns. A documentary that sounds interesting about a topic you might like. You stumble across it on streaming and wonder if it will be worth two hours of your time. This series will be devoted to reviewing films like these, the strange items that pop up when you are looking for a flick on the streaming service of your choice. This is “We Found It On Streaming”
FILM: Road House
Release Date: March 8, 2024
Run Time: 123 Minutes.
Streaming Service(s): Amazon
Rating: R for violence throughout, pervasive language and some nudity.
The original 1989 Road House is not a good movie, but it’s a great movie. Let me explain.
Action films very rarely get positive reviews. Because an action film doesn’t have satisfy the same dramatic characterization that Oscar winning fare does. All an action film needs to be successful is a protagonist that we could root for, a bad guy we could root against, enough plot to get to the action scenes, and enough action scenes to keep watchers on the edge of their seats. Add a few snappy one-liners and you have a movie.
The original Road House filled these requirements in the weirdest way possible. Perfectly coiffed Patrick Swayze played the lead, James Dalton as some kind of Zen warrior. Ben Gazzara played the slimy town boss he needed to fight. It was weirder than your usual action fair, and therefore developed a cult following of sorts. However, it wasn’t a film that was crying out for a remake. But a remake we got.
Elwood Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a former UFC fighter who has fallen on hard times. He is sleeping in his car and fighting in pit fights to make money. He gets a job offer from Frankie (Jessica Williams), a woman who owns a Road House in the Florida Keys who is trying to fight a developer, Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen) who wants the land the Road House sits on. Dalton makes headway, too much, because Brandt’s father hires Knox (Conor McGregor), a sociopathic force of nature, to take out Dalton once and for all.
The remake follows in the spiritual footsteps of its predecessor, but not slavishly so. The screenplay by Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry fills the world of the movie with quirky characters that enter the narrative in unique ways. For instance, we first meet Knox as he walks bare-assed naked through the streets of an Italian town. Their script is a witty one, with a lot of off-the-cuff jokes that come from out of nowhere and earn more than a few chuckles.
Doug Liman is a very skilled and inventive action director. There are a lot of inventive camera angles and jittery action shots. It makes for an exciting film, as long as you don’t suffer from motion sickness.
Gyllenhaal has perhaps the toughest job of the remake. Dalton was one of the roles that defined Patrick Swayze, and his “nice guy that kicks ass” take on the character was a hard one to pull off but he made it sing.
Gyllenhaal’s take on Dalton shares some of the same qualities that Swayze’s Dalton had, including a similar tragedy in their past. But while Swayze’s Dalton is smooth and stoic, Gyllenhaal is broken and depressed, Dalton is definitely grittier now. I like the more realistic take on the character. Your mileage may vary.
Conor McGregor’s performance has received a lot of acclaim in a lot of reviews. I think it is okay, but I think it more because the part is written to his strengths. The character is bold and over the top. A first-time actor can chew all the scenery they want in a role like this and come out smelling like roses. That’s what I think is going on with McGregor’s performance.
Billy Magnusson is suitably smarmy as the bad guy Ben Brandt. He is an overgrown man-child who thing he deserves respect, but he is not taken seriously enough to earn it. Magnusson seems to be having a blast in the part.
The rest of the cast is able but exist only to fill certain jobs in the script. Most infuriating is the way Daniela Melchior was used. She was excellent in The Suicide Squad but is reduced to a few flirtatious scenes with Gyllenhaal and last-act damsel in distress here. She deserved better.
The stunt work is amazing, with bodies flying all over the places and boats going though buildings. The stunts might defy the laws of physics, but they are pretty to see. The fight choreography is also excellent, which is good considering the film revolves around its fight scenes. If they weren’t exciting, the film would have failed immediately.
The one technical aspect about the film that deserves the most criticism is the sound mixing. Road House is one of those movies where the dialogue parts are very hard to hear, and the music and action parts are terribly loud. It’s so bad that it is almost impossible to find a correct balance on your remote. So, either keep the closed captioning on or warn your neighbors before turning on the film.
Road House is a film that you can review in any number of ways. Comparing it to the original, it is a better crafted film but pales in comparison to the feeling the original invokes. As a film, it does have flaws but the skill in how it was made makes up for it. As a modern action film, it is a lot of fun, with a lot of what you would want in the genre. If you like action films, give it a shot.
Have you found a film on streaming that you’d like us to look at? Leave it in the comments and it might appear in a future installment of this feature.
