Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Road House’ on Amazon Prime Video, a Highly Enjoyable Remake Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and His Abs

Jake Gyllenhaal got thoroughly yoked to star in Road House (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video) – the poster puts his hella-cut pecs and abs center-frame, and the trailers prominently showcase the charismatic actor doing shirtless sit-ups, all the better to thirst-trap us into mashing that play button. Two compelling meta-storylines spring forth: One, the film is a remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze classic-in-quote-marks that became a cable-TV staple and beloved nostalgia piece that represents a pinnacle of ’80s cheeze; can it live up to the standards of the original? (Maybe, although the question may not be worth asking.) And two, highly respected veteran director Doug Liman (Go, Edge of Tomorrow) publicly criticized Amazon/MGM for shuttling the film direct to streaming, forgoing a theatrical release. And you can easily see why he was pissed, since it’s packed with action and would look great on the big screen; would it have been a box office hit? (Probably!)   

ROAD HOUSE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Somewhere in who-cares-where, a bare-knuckle fight club features Post Malone as a shirtless brawler mopping the floor with all comers until Elwood Dalton (Gyllenhaal) comes along and pulls off his hoodie to reveal a torso that even Michelangelo couldn’t’ve carved. Post takes one look at the rippling flesh meat on the guy and absquatulates outta there faster than Baby Driver at a bank heist. A pocketful of cash, and he didn’t even throw a punch. Easy money. A degenerate gambler who doesn’t take kindly to losing his scratch in such a fashion confronts Dalton in the parking lot by putting a knife right above our protag’s hip – and no, it doesn’t shatter on his steel obliques, it sticks in and stays there and Dalton winces a little but shows just enough of a hint of a berserker in his eyes to send the attacker scuttling back to his hovel hole. 

The knife is still in his side when Frankie (Jessica Williams) approaches him with a job offer: She has a roadhouse in the Florida Keys. He’d get $20k for a month’s worth of cleaning up the joint, and we don’t mean janitorial services. This place has a chronic asshole problem and he’s just the guy to bounce violent idiots right out the door. Nah, he says, then gets in his car and pulls around the railroad crossing barrier and parks on the tracks and… changes his mind at the last second and hops a bus to The Insanity State. First thing he does is make friends with a precocious teen named Charlie (Hannah Love Lanier), who works in a quaint little bookstore. Then he hoofs it to Road House, and is perplexed to learn that it’s just named Road House. What kind of place is it? The kind where, if only a half-dozen bottles get busted over skulls, it’s a slow night. 

Now here’s the thing about Dalton. He’s always got this goofy wide-eyed half-grin on his face. It’s softer than a smirk, but not a full-on smile. I think it gives him an advantage when he needs to put a mofo’s teeth out. Disarms the opponent a little. I also think it helps him compartmentalize; see, he has a nasty streak that has something to do with his being destitute even though he used to be a prized UFC fighter. Is there TRAUMA here? Of course there’s TRAUMA here. Every other movie these days makes TRAUMA a plot point. Anyway, that half-grin really enrages the furrowed-brow toughs who try to Do Something About It. First night on the job, he open-hand slaps five dickheads to Concussiontown, then gives them a ride to the hospital. While there, he gets his owie checked out (that stab wound’s still oozing) by Dr. Ellie (Daniela Melchior) and they flirt a little and allow him to deliver the signature line: “No one ever wins a fight.”

Turns out, those five chucklenucks are in the employ of a no-socks-and-loafers Florida sleazeweasel named Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen), who runs the town from his luxury catamaran. You know the type – failson, ugly Kim Jong Un haircut, cops in his pocket, probably crushes opioids into his coffee every morning. His goal is to make Road House untenable so he can buy it and raze it and build a luxury resort for rich pricks that’s big and hideous and will murder the gorgeous seaside scenery. And this bouncer? He’s a thorn in Brandt’s side. He summons a maniac to scare Dalton away, and the maniac’s name is Knox (real-life UFC champ Conor McGregor), and you know that because he wears a big gold necklace that says KNOX and hangs above an ab tattoo that says KNOX KNOX KNOX. I won’t reveal what happens next, but one thing’s for sure, this is going to get more violent before anything gets less violent.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: In 2011, a skilled and highly legit director, Craig Brewer, updated Footloose, and the world shrugged. It didn’t succeed at making Kenny Wormald a star, likely because Wormald is no Jake Gyllenhaal.

Performance Worth Watching: This is easily in the upper third of Gyllenhaal performances, and even though Dalton isn’t the deepest character, the actor gives him a reasonably fascinating dark side. Otherwise, Lanier is a charmer, and Magnussen makes playing an easy-to-loathe character look easy.

Memorable Dialogue: My favorite one-liner finds Dalton deploying gross understatement: “People seem a little aggressive around here.”

And my favorite pseudo-profound observation comes via wise optimist Charlie: “Shit happens. Only here, it always happens on a beautiful day.”

Sex and Skin: None. Those abs are for fighting, not f—ing. 

Our Take: Inevitably, a big chunk of y’all will want to know how this Road House stacks up against the original, but that’s a nonstarter of a discussion point. Those of you who hold the Patrick Swayze film in high esteem as a hilarious pop-cultural time capsule best enjoyed with friends and booze will never be satisfied with a remake, even one in which the star spends far more time building core strength than he does with the mousse and hair dryer. In that role, Swayze embodied the indelible cornballiness of ’80s pop-trash cinema, and will never be surpassed. Gyllenhaal is an excellent actor with legit chops and commercial appeal, but will never compare. So let it be known that this new Road House can, indeed, exist, and at the same time, you can, indeed, still enjoy the original as much as you always have. The world is not a binary place!

There’s no possible way Liman and Gyllenhaal could have made a sillier Road House, so they give the film a tinge – more than a smidgen, less than a dappling – of dark psychoticism to explain the violent urges of their main character. There’s your modern angle, but it’s not a sharp one. Maybe they lightly graze some “thematic material” addressing the consequences of violence, but is it “about” that? Nah. Not really. It’s definitely a brutally violent film, with the bone-cracking audio-visuals that make you feel like you’re taking a fist in the ribs, but such scenes are frequently punctuated with the movie’s running joke where the band in the Road House will never, ever stop playing – behind a chicken-wire fence, mind you – no matter how unruly the brawls get.

No, Road House Twenty Twenty-Four is absolutely entertainment-forward, with enough mostly unspoken internal conflict from Gyllenhaal to make us care about what happens. Tonally, Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry’s screenplay elevates reality to a point where characters not only consistently say funny things, but also survive mostly uninjured after getting hit by a truck and pushed off a bridge into the ocean with the truck splashing down right behind them. I laughed a bunch of times, and felt a thrill or three, too – Liman directs action sequences with style and visual wit, although his use of sketchy CGI during high-octane, non-pugilistic moments toe the bullshit border a little too close for my taste. Of course, the plot builds up to Dalton’s heavy-duty showdown with Captain Cauliflower Ears, who provokes our quasi-antihero’s dark urges, and finds out what he’s capable of (and he’s certainly capable of some shit!). It’s pretty satisfying to watch Liman and Gyllenhaal gin up an enjoyable Road House to happily exist in its own little pop-cultural bubble. 

Our Call: This new Road House is better than it needs to be. STREAM IT – and enjoy it better by avoiding the logical fallacy inherent in comparing it to beloved past favorites. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.