What\u2019s especially frustrating is if they\u2019d had<\/em> the stones to really and truly remake Road House<\/em>, they picked the right guy for the job. Jake Gyllenhaal isn\u2019t precisely the same kind of actor as Patrick Swayze, but he has a similar joy of performance, and a way of commanding the attention of the camera, even when he\u2019s perfectly still. He gets a movie-star entrance here, pulling off a hoodie after stepping into the ring of a bare-knuckle fighting club, and some funny bits of initial business with Jessica Williams, stepping into Kevin Tighe\u2019s shoes as the bar owner looking to hire a super-bouncer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s not the only alteration of note; new screenwriters Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry change Dalton\u2019s first name (\u201cElwood,\u201d and god how I wish I was making that up), shift the setting from small-town Missouri to the Florida Keys, and change the name of the titular establishment. Here, we get a fleeting glimpse of a Double Deuce restaurant (WINK WINK), but the Road House itself is called the Road House, a failed bit that ends up playing like \u201cWho\u2019s On First\u201d with a concussion. (Dalton also has to share an affectionate camaraderie with a precocious tween, and god how I wish I was making that up too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Liman, who typically at least knows how to pace a picture (his credits include The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith<\/em>, and Go<\/em>) really lets the tempo slack once Dalton arrives at the Road House; the middle stretch bogs down into endless scenes of bands playing while random fights break out. Yes, there\u2019s too much of that for even a Road House<\/em> remake \u2014 it seems to be the one and only thing Liman decided to faithfully recreate, a dubious choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The primary problem with Road House 2.0<\/em> is the question of logic, and the dubious application of it. It makes sense<\/em> that a disgraced UFC fighter would wind up taking a job as a bouncer-for-hire; it makes far less sense that a Zen-spouting, Mercedes-driving, professional \u201ccooler\u201d with a degree in philosophy would even exist<\/em>, much less would end up in a nowhere bar in Missouri. It makes sense<\/em> that a rich kid would hire a tough biker gang to rough up the patrons of a bar sitting on a plot of land they\u2019d like to buy and develop; it makes less sense that a grizzled rich baddie would send his toughs in to smash up the town bar every night simply as an evil flex. The beauty of Road House was that it didn\u2019t make any sense \u2014 as Roger Ebert wrote, it\u2019s \u201cthe kind of movie that leaves reality so far behind that you have to accept it on its own terms.\u201d The only sense that mattered was what got us from one set piece, one brawl, one nonsensical quip to the next. What we have here is a script that fixes things that weren\u2019t broken, correcting features instead of bugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are other miscalculations. Ben Gazzara, as the aforementioned grizzled rich baddie, is replaced by Billy Magnussen\u2019s Brandt, a whiny failson who\u2019s neither scary nor threatening, but merely annoying (it\u2019s John Wick 4 <\/em>all over again). He\u2019s degrees of magnitude less obnoxious than Conor McGregor, who\u2019s mugging and preening with such oversized self-satisfaction that you want to peel him off the lens. But ultimately, the biggest mistake is taking a delightfully lunk-headed, coked-out late-\u201880s bruiser and methodically excising all of its quirks and eccentricities \u2014 flattening it into just another 2020s action flick. It\u2019s entertaining enough, I guess, if you haven\u2019t seen the original. But if you\u2019re not going to appeal to an audience that knows and loves the original Road House,<\/em> why bother remaking it at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Road House” premieres March 21 on Amazon Prime<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/road-house2-1024x589.jpg\")
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The good: the fight scenes often have a wild comic ingenuity to them, bordering on slapstick (and sometimes crossing the line). Dalton fights like the Waco Kid shoots in Blazing Saddles<\/em> \u2014 so fast, so accurate, that it becomes comic. (Also, the abject stupidity of every single henchman is a good runner.) And Liman is doing some other clever things in those fights, which are messily (so, accurately) choreographed, and then shot in long, panning takes to create a continuity of action. There\u2019s one great death scene that\u2019s teed up fair and square, but still hilariously surprising. And however clumsily it arrives there, the last big fight indisputably delivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\nC-<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n