Rating: C-
Dir: Doug Liman
Star: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Conor McGregor
My long-standing rule quickly comes into play here: only remake a film if you can bring something new and interesting to the table, or improve significantly on an area in which the original was deficient. On that basis, this doesn’t work. What’s new here isn’t interesting, and while the action here is certainly more hard-hitting (although there’s a large caveat to that statement), it was hardly a problem in the eighties Road House. At least they didn’t mess with the story, which is nominally the same. Dalton (Gyllenhall) is hired to clean up a violence-troubled drinking establishment, only to find himself going up against a businessman with bad intentions for the local area. Though why this version needs to be over two hours long escapes me.
On the positive side, I liked Gyllenhaal. He’s not as damn weird as Swayze, and is plausible enough as a troubled ex-UFC fighter, whose career was yanked from under him after he failed to manage his anger. The problem is, few of the other characters seem to be operating in the same movie. In the original, you could easily imagine them being from the same universe, albeit a rather bizarro one. Here, you have Magnussen as evil property developer Ben Brandt, about as bland and unthreatening as bread rolls. While Conor McGregor – whom the IMDb would like to remind you, is not an actor – chews scenery like it’s chicken tendies. Combine the two performances and the average would be about right.
Then the film gives Dalton a perky teenage sidekick, who runs a customer-free bookshop, and seems to have strayed in from a Disney movie. It’s a weird change from the garage guy, whom you could plausibly see Dalton connecting with. And the film relocates proceedings to the Florida Keys, with the new road house looking like an off-brand Islands franchise. All these changes seem intended to separate the remake from its predecessor; they do, yet I can’t think of one which was an improvement. The brutality of the fight scenes is notable, but is largely achieved through CGI, sometimes very obviously. By the end, when a guy flies hundreds of feet through the air without significant damage, any impact is negligible.
Like most modern remakes, it would plausibly pass muster if you’ve never seen the original. Liman is by no means a bad director, and there are just about enough decent scenes to sustain interest. However, the sense of white trash culture which informed the original is gone, and what you have here, instead feels more like a pilot for a Miami Vice reboot. So. Much. Power-boating. Outside of McGregor’s performance, there is almost nothing here that will make any impression. The whole thing seems destined to be forgotten as soon as it vanishes off Amazon’s front page, alongside the Robocop and Total Recall remakes. Why Liman got so bent about it skipping cinemas, I don’t know. If I’d paid actual money for this, I would be unimpressed.