'Road House' review: Jake Gyllenhaal packs punches in Amazon remake of 80s cult classic

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• Ray Chan, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Art Director, Dies at 56
• ‘What’s the Matter with Helen?’ Is a Quotable Midnight Movie Ritual Made for Two
• Taylor Swift Likes Post of Kansas City Chiefs’ New Draft Pick
• How the New Road House Updates the Bizarre, Beer-Sluggin’ Best Bad Movie of All Time
• Post Malone Teases Morgan Wallen Collaboration Just Before Stagecoach
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Liman’s Road House doesn’t quite reach the original movie's level of silliness. Philip grew up in Louisiana (not New Orleans) before moving to St. Louis after graduating from Louisiana State University-Shreveport. When he's not writing about movies or television, Philip can be found being chased by his three kids, telling his dogs to stop barking at the mailman, or chatting about professional wrestling to his wife. Writing gigs with school newspapers, multiple daily newspapers, and other varied job experiences led him to this point where he actually gets to write about movies, shows, wrestling, and documentaries (which is a huge win in his eyes). If the stars properly align, he will talk about For Love Of The Game being the best baseball movie of all time. Instead of being a “cooler” with a checkered past, Gyllenhaal’s character in the remake will be a former UFC fighter who somehow manages to get a job at that rowdy Florida roadhouse.

Ray Chan, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Art Director, Dies at 56

He's run out of options when he's offered a job cooling down the riff-raff at a roadhouse in the Florida Keys. When he shows up, he teaches the other bouncers to de-escalate the violence that flares up night after night among the bar's very mean, very drunk patrons. The 1989 movie where Patrick Swayze is a professional New York City bouncer imported to Missouri to work at the most raucous road house bar in the Show Me State? The kind of film in which the hero does tai chi, reads philosophy and coos Zen koans like “Pain don’t hurt,” and the bad guy utters bon mots like, “I used to fuck guys like you in prison? As the new Dalton, Gyllenhaal embodies the Swayze character’s faux-zen credo—“Be nice…until it’s time to not be nice”—without cribbing the line outright.

‘What’s the Matter with Helen?’ Is a Quotable Midnight Movie Ritual Made for Two

One biker, played by the movie’s designated scene-stealer Arturo Castro, keeps a dim-witted running commentary. And then, when Dalton does spring into action, its a hyperkinetic mixed-martial-arts melee that’s a blur and an adrenaline rush. You suddenly remember that Liman was the man calling the shots behind both the casual comic rapport of Swingers (1996) and the close-combat sequences in The Bourne Identity (2002). The humor is deadpan and the fights feel deadly in a way that channels a very 21st century, post-John Wick style of snap, crackle and pow. Frankie’s boisterous seaside establishment is called simply the Road House, a joke name that’s barely even a joke.

Taylor Swift Likes Post of Kansas City Chiefs’ New Draft Pick

To Liman and the screenwriters’ credit, the shift from cartoonish action to drama-with-moments-of-heightened-action feels modern and fresh without completely eschewing the spirit of the original film. Those behind this film clearly have affection for the original but it’s not the religious devotion to source material that has killed too many remakes to count. This isn't the first time Gyllenhaal has played an ultra-shredded fighter, as he did in the 2015 boxing melodrama Southpaw. His Dalton is a pretty standard-issue protagonist, complete with a troubled past that haunts his dreams. But Gyllenhaal, who's always brought a touch of wild energy even to his good-guy roles, makes those demons more convincing than you'd expect.

Unfortunately, this remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal delivers a lackluster and ultimately unnecessary retread of the original Patrick Swayze-starring film. And in case you’re wanting to do a comparison watch, “Road House” (1989) is currently streamable with Prime Video, Max and Showtime subscriptions. One element that didn’t work in the original film — the romance between Dalton (Swayze) and “Doc” (Kelly Lynch) also falls flat here, unfortunately.

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Stephen discovers Dalton has left them the trunk of cash as the bus pulls away. In a mid-credits scene, Knox has survived and assaults the hospital staff, leaving in his gown. At the moment, it remains unclear whether Gyllenhaal will take on the role of Dalton in the “Road House” remake or if the film will function as a different type of interpretation of the 1989 original. MGM execs are reportedly meeting to get a new draft rolling for the project.

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Added to the insult is a script that relies heavily on dialogue, yet that fails every attempt at humor. With a runtime of just 2 hours, “Road House” is a breezy watch and its soft R-rating for language and violence also means it could be a good family-with-older-kids movie night pick. While the new “Road House” isn’t a remake in the vein of Luca Guadagnino’s subversive and beautiful “Suspiria,” which is very nearly a completely different film, it’s a worthwhile reinvention that works. Dalton’s fortune is changed, however, after he’s scouted to become the bouncer at The Road House, a troubled tropic-themed watering hole where live bands perform behind cages for their own safety. In Herrington’s movie, patron rowdiness is dialed up to 100% — which is both fun to watch and also gives that film a certain unreality that makes some of its script shortcomings passable. But Liman’s “Road House” tempers some of the customer violence, which helps ground the story a little more but equally makes these portions of the film much less memorable.

The ensuing violent confrontations and the spiral of bloodshed turn the idyllic Keys into a battleground, presenting Dalton with challenges far beyond anything he encountered in the Octagon. For his “reimagining” of the story, director Doug Liman (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Edge of Tomorrow”) keeps most threads from the original film while altering some of what doesn’t work in the campy neo-Western. But there's something too artificial about the action, with its often distractingly obvious CGI touch-ups. I saw Road House at a screening in a theater, and it's possible the technical flaws were magnified on the big screen in a way that they won't be on your TV. Even so, it's too bad that audiences won't get a chance to decide for themselves. Doug Liman (“Edge of Tomorrow”) directs the movie from a script written by Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry.

None of the other actors are especially persuasive, except Jessica Williams as the roadhouse's tough-minded owner. As a snarling hit man who tries to take Dalton down, the Irish professional fighter Conor McGregor does make an impression, in the same way a wrecking ball makes an impression. The original film grossed a modest $30 million against a $15 million budget but has since become a cult classic and stands as one of Patrick Swayze’s most beloved roles. Along the way, cult comedy icons like the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew and Clerks director Kevin Smith sang the movie’s praises. Kelly Lynch started telling a well-received anecdote about how Bill Murray and his brothers call her husband any time they catch her big sex scene in the movie on cable. And a growing legion of fans discovered you can’t find its unique blend of sturdy construction and cockamamie content anywhere else.

Though Rousey would go on to find tremendous success with WWE following the end of her UFC career, it’s a shame that the ass kicker, who is obsessed with Road House, never got her shot. Streaming has virtually erased the concept, and the allure, of the “straight-to-video” release. Cheap, sensationalistic films are still being made, but they’re more likely to be appreciated only by niche audiences. There’s no such thing as a mainstream B movie—made truly with just a few nickels and not backed by a cool, name-brand studio—that hungry moviegoers, en masse, will trek out to see.

As we've seen from his earlier movies, the best of which include The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow, Liman is a more-than-capable director of action. The bar brawls here are well choreographed and cleanly shot, and the fighting encompasses everything from intimate fisticuffs to grander-scale set-pieces. Probably my favorite performance is given by a hungry crocodile who makes short work of one of the more annoying members of the cast and gives the movie some authentic Florida flavor. Most of the other key characters have been recycled from the first film, from the flirty doctor who gives Dalton more than strictly medical attention to the wealthy villain who has his own designs on the roadhouse.

Some of the most iconic ‘80s movies like Red Dawn, The Karate Kid, and Robocop have all received the remake treatment in the past decade or so, but one legendary, and badass action flick, 1989’s Road House, has never been remade. Well, that will soon change with the upcoming reimagining of the Patrick Swayze classic with Jake Gyllenhaal leading things. This unconvincing romance, however, is perhaps the sole element that really doesn’t work with the story’s tonal shift.

At one point, a nasty biker gang shows up and starts wreaking havoc inside the roadhouse. It also features Arturo Castro, B.K. Cannon, Beau Knapp, Darren Barnet, Dominique Columbus and UFC fighter Conor McGregor in his first-ever film role. The film appears to have some similarities with the Swayze, mainly Dalton being a fighting machine working at a roadhouse. Dalton is back to his fighting ways — and this time he’s causing havoc in a new location. Billy Magnussen, Suicide Squad actress Daniela Melchior, Gbemisola Ikumelo and Lukas Gage are set to star.

How he ends up there will surely be fleshed out in time, but for right now, the idea of a former UFC fighter running security at a raucous dive bar sounds pretty, pretty good. Taking on Swayze’s role, Jake Gyllenhaal plays the pro fighter turned bouncer Elwood Dalton, here protecting a juke joint that sits on a valuable piece of real estate in the Florida Keys. At his most winning despite his character’s lethal nature, Gyllenhaal keeps up the one-liners and drollery. In lieu of Swayze’s Zenlike musings, he gives us dry inquiries about whether his challengers have medical insurance before pummeling and delivering them to a hospital.