Rod and JL Cauvin review the 2024 action remake “Road House.” Of course, they get into a lot of hilarious tangents as well.
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SMR 496: Road House
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I think the original Road House was so ‘of its time’ and freaking GREAT, that no remake would be able to recapture what made the original so special. (As an aside, I miss Jeff Healey so much — the dude fronting the bar band behind the chicken wire in the original.) But thank you Rod and J-L for your review, it was interesting hearing your takes!
What a steaming pile of influencer dog shit this was, really. If you’re going to a Road House anything, at least, don’t film this film like it’s Fight Night on the Xbox 360 or PS3.
A good chunk of why I didn’t enjoy a lot of this, is, in fact, the poor direction choices made from Doug Liman. The action is easy to follow, but it’s the weight of it that’s sorely lacking. I don’t like the term Video Game-y, a lot of it felt that way & video games have come a very long way in recent memory. This choice of zooming in on Dalton with a truck trying to run him over or in a fight to convey a UFC feel, just was a bad choice. It also takes away the potential of good choreography, due to whatever this style was. David Leitch is no Chad Stalheski (I mean, fuck, he worked with him for the first two Wick films) but he could’ve done this better & Liman got some hits (Swingers, Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow), this just didn’t work.
Gyllenhaal, I love you dude, Liman failed you. This screenplay failed you. This fucking movie got him more lackadaisical than a Shannon Sharpe reference about dating. It’s not believable. Conor McGregor gave the film a jolt & then I went back to not caring again. Also, the way that last fight wedged in “be nice”, nigga, pathetic. Like Donnie Yen said in John Wick 4: “well, why bother?”
It was already a difficult ask to reboot or remake this to begin with, knowing its era. I recently watched Road House 1989 twice in one week to release every single memory of the new one out of my brain. I also genuinely liked it a lot. Ridiculous or otherwise, I find it to be an underappreciated action film. Far from the greatest, but it did a lot well in the genre. Sure, it’s a film of its time, frequently heavy-handed, homoerotic & crass but it’s charm, fights & likable characters, brought it to life in a way the latest film couldn’t. Billy Magnessen is a good actor. Dude plays dicks well, typically. Ben Gazzara, who played Brad Wesley in the original, runs circles around the plainly named Ben Brandt in the new film. Gazzara even fought Dalton in the old joint before getting more shotgun blasts than a Fruit Gushers. Fucking Sam Elliott’s ol ornery ass was great as Wade Garrett, too. I will say Keith David deserved way better but I’ll discuss that another time. Fucking Patrick Swayze was so dope in it, too. Charismatic, reserved & a capable star. He keeps that film grounded & carries it all the way to the end. Soundtrack’s pretty good, too.
Now back to the new-bad Road House: Daniela Melchior has seen better days (better in The Suicide Squad Guardians 3 & even fine in the unimpressive Fast X to a certain degree). Jessica Williams was a Daily Show host & is given so little here to do. There’s not a lot to like here, man.
I maybe a millennial & liberal but this shit wasn’t hard enough. Probably needed some racism to make it come alive. I felt like I was watching a poorly edited movie on TNT &/or TBS with this one. Booty cheeks.
If I had been told that Conor McGregor would be the best part of this before I saw it I probably would have walked away laughing from the person that said so like Conors character every time he showed us his Irish ass. I’m in agreement that Homelander or Jon Bernthal would have been better for the lead role. Banshee is where I first saw my man killing it (both the bad guys and ladies). I’m also glad that I wasn’t alone in expecting Dalton to fuck Frankie at least once. What a let down except for the Conor scenes. No racism, no titties, no fucking, this movie gonna make Charlamagne say “see my point about DEI was correct.” My main positive is that it wasn’t in the theater, cause I would have been fuming lol. I’ll go watch Monkey Man again and cleanse my eyes!