Pain don't hurt... but bad writing does

My review of Road House (2024) and Road House (1989), both of which I watched for the first time in a single sitting.

Note: To the extent that there is a story to spoil, this article contains spoilers for Road House starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Also spoilers for Road House starring Patrick Swayze, but… come on. That movie is older than I am.

I just watched Road House (2024) and Road House (1989) in the same night. I had never seen the original before, but I had a vague premonition that it would be pretty unfair to compare the remake to the beloved cult classic. So I watched them in reverse order. 

It was the right decision. Which is to say I watched the remake, directed by Doug Liman and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, and found it somewhere between mediocre and pretty bad; then I watched the original, directed by the appropriately named Rowdy Herrington and starring Patrick Swayze, and promptly realized that, actually, words like “mediocre” and “pretty bad” were far too generous to the remake. In fact, it sucked.

Where to begin? 

I suppose I’ll start by saying that I really like Jake Gyllenhaal. Of all the leading men working in Hollywood today, he may have the best track record. I don’t know whether he has great taste or simply great management, but compared to his peers the man has starred in an astounding number of films that are either very good, quite interesting, or both. Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain, Prisoners, Enemy, Nocturnal Animals, Nightcrawler, Zodiac… the list goes on. I think he’s a phenomenal actor. 

He was easily the best actor in Liman’s Road House. Faint praise, considering he shared the screen with Conor McGregor and a host of other players who may not actually be community theater bad, but, given a community theater script, certainly struggled to elevate it. 

And that was, after all, the real problem with this reheated mess of a movie. The writing was atrocious. The plot was a mess. The dialogue was horrendous. Almost every single opportunity to introduce or develop a character was either missed entirely, or fulfilled with the single most cliched, first draft placeholder idea possible. A few examples: 

• The main villain, Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen) is introduced baring his throat for a straight razor shave. Power move! 

• A minor bad guy shows up to the road house and swipes a bottle and some glasses onto the floor. “Clean up on aisle four!” he says 

• The villain’s evil plan? To buy out the road house and replace it with a shiny, modernist resort. Ever seen the ski resort episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

• When the protagonist is finally pushed too far (a process which appears to take little to no effort on the part of the villain, since he starts the movie as a pathetic wreck anyway), his boss challenges him, asking, “Are you really that afraid?” “Yes, I am afraid,” he says. “More than you could ever understand.” Ugh.

When the writing didn’t consist of pure, distilled cliche, it barely existed at all. The original Road House is chock full of quotable lines that skillfully ride the line between pure cheese and pure badass. All the same one-liner opportunities are there in the remake, but the one-liners themselves have none of the charm or originality of the original. 

At one point Conor McGregor’s character, Knox, shows up to trash the road house. “Just what I thought,” he says, doing the Vince McMahon walk into the center of the room, “this road house is mine.” Curiously, no one asks him to explain what he means. Moments later, he notices the band on stage behind the chain link fence strung up to protect them from their rowdy audience. “I hate this song,” he declares. He then proceeds to tear a hole in the fence, stick his head through, and, mugging for the camera, say… “Hello, band!” 

Hello, band.

Hello band.

In stark contrast to this AI generated slop, most of the great lines in the original Road House are particular to the people that deliver them. Characters’ dialogue is, well… characteristic. 

Take this exchange for example:

“Like horses, do ya?”
“If they like me.”
“You wouldn’t steal ‘em, would ya?”
“No, sir.”
“Callin’ me ‘sir’ is like puttin’ an elevator in an outhouse. Don’t belong. I’m Emmet.” 

Or this one:

“How long you gonna be in town?”
“Not very long.”
“That’s what I said, 25 years ago.”
“Really? What happened?”
“Oh, I got married–to an ugly woman. Don’t ever do that, it just takes the energy right out of you. She left me, though. Found someone even uglier than she was. That’s life. Who can explain it?”

Or this:

[examining a knife wound] “How’d this happen?”
“Natural causes.” 

I don’t even have to attach names to these lines. The voices are distinct enough on their own, and the little jokes are more than just quips: each punchline is a window into the life of a charming character with their own worldview. And this quality extends beyond the dialogue and into the action, like when the hapless owner of the Double Deuce spots a bit of profane graffiti on the way to his office and, pulling out a magic marker, slyly changes “For a good FUCK call” to “For a good BUiCK call.” Polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Silly? Yes. But silly and good are not mutually exclusive. The writers of the original Road House, R. Lance Hill and Hilary Henkin, were not ashamed of the story they penned; they seem to have reveled in the absurdity, packing every line and moment and character with vibrancy and life. Everything is played perfectly straight, as if the whole situation wasn’t silly at all. And the movie is a joy to watch, brilliant and ridiculous in equal measure. 

That pride in absurdity is something missing from the new Road House, and, frankly, from a lot of modern genre flicks. Liman’s Road House isn’t just lazy, it’s insecure. Unlike the original, the remake knows that it’s a stupid movie, and seems vaguely embarrassed about it. Instead of just playing things straight, the film tries to make up for its innate absurdity with constant, knowing winks to the audience.

We open with Gyllenhaal’s Dalton (first name Elwood, for some reason) entering into some sort of underground, winner-take-all MMA tournament. The guy currently beating all comers is played by Post Malone, who was neither expected to get in shape nor learn how to punch for the role. Probably because he knew they were just going to cobble the fight choreography together with CGI anyway (yes, they actually do that throughout the movie). Anyway, Post Malone takes one look at Dalton, recognizes him as the former UFC fighter who went all Paul Daley on his last opponent, and refuses to fight. This apparently merits Dalton all of the money. 

Dalton is then approached in the parking lot by a guy who managed to bet $500 on Post Malone in the 20 seconds that elapsed between Dalton entering the warehouse and taking off his hoodie. The guy walks right up and stabs Dalton, who calmly says, “You sure you thought this all the way through?” The guy flees, leaving the blade in Dalton’s belly, with Dalton calling after him, “Where are you going? Don’t you want your knife?”

Now that’s all fine. In fact, it’s pretty badass. The problem arises when Dalton is approached by Jackie (Jessica Williams), the owner of a struggling bar who wants to hire Dalton on the strength of the fight she just watched him not have. As soon as she sees the knife sticking out of his gut she starts quipping like the audience-insert character in one of the grittier Marvel movies. “Oh… Oh, god!” she says. “Um… do you need an ambulance or something? You know you got a big-ass knife stickin’ outta you?” She watches him yank it out, pulling awkward faces all the while, before adding, “Wow, it seems like you do this a lot.”

Why must we do this? When Patrick Swayze’s Dalton went to the hospital for his knife wound, for which he refused anesthetic with the iconically laconic, “Pain don’t hurt,” the only reaction the doctor had was to immediately start unzipping his jeans with her eyes. Because Swayze’s Dalton was cool. He was so cool, man. And the movie wanted us to think he was cool, whereas the remake mostly wants to get ahead of the possibility of us poking holes in its logic by inserting a character who also knows how totally, like, weird this all is. Right guys? Isn’t it weird? You like me, though, right? Please like me. 

The movie’s insecure self-awareness continues as Dalton arrives in Glass Key (this Road House is set in the Florida Keys, rather than bumfuck Missouri) to be greeted by the teenaged owner of the town’s independent bookstore. 

Actually, it’s unclear whether Glass Key is a town at all, or merely a smattering of small businesses scattered along a stretch of highway. The original’s strong sense of geography–Red’s store can be seen from the Double Deuce, Swayze’s apartment looks at the villainous Brad Wesley’s mansion from the other side of a narrow river–is nowhere to be found here. If Glass Key is a town, it’s spread about as thin as the movie’s plot. 

Anyway, 2024 Dalton is welcomed to Glass Key by a precocious teen named Charlie, portrayed by Hannah Lanier, who at the very least is a better actor than Conor McGregor. Lanier has the unfortunate task of delivering lots of exposition and holding the viewer’s hand as the movie tries to convince us it’s actually, like, really smart. Because isn’t it smart when you know how stupid you are?

When Dalton tells her that he’s in town to keep the bad guys out of the local road house, she says, “That kinda sounds like the plot to a western.” Doesn’t it just. A few scenes later, Dalton returns to use the bookstore’s computer, for reasons which are never elucidated and therefore probably have to do with porn. “I found your life story,” Charlie tells him, hefting a yellowed paperback. “Death at the Double X, by Martin Holly. Paperback western from the 1950s.” She reads the abstract: “‘The intrepid Wade Waco never met a scoundrel he couldn’t bring to justice. But then again, Wade had never stepped foot in the Double X, a saloon red-hot with rustlin’, cheatin’, robbin’, and murder.’” She looks up at him, precociously. “You’re intrepid, right?” 

Do you get it? This movie is sort of like a stupid old western. And aren’t we very smart for acknowledging that!

By the way, did you peep those subtle nods to the original film? Double X, like the Double Deuce, see? And Wade Waco, like Sam Elliott’s Wade Garrett! And murder, like what I wanted to do to myself by the end of the scene. I love Easter eggs. 

The thing is, Liman’s Road House is astronomically more stupid than the original. It actually has less depth, and a whole lot less craft. 

See, Swayze’s Dalton isn’t just a bouncer. He’s a cooler. His job isn’t to beat people up, but to keep the peace. To that end, he shows up to the Double Deuce on a scouting mission before ever announcing himself. He stands at the bar, drinking black coffee and observing all the problems he’ll have to fix: an ill-tempered bouncer, a drug-dealing waitress, a bartender skimming the take–and, of course, the bar’s belligerent, violent clientele. 

Only after collecting his intel does he agree to take the job, at which point he proceeds to tell the staff how they’re going to be doing things from now on. He gives them three simple rules for dealing with troublemakers. 1) Never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. 2) If there has to be a fight, take it outside whenever possible. And 3) Be nice. Whatever the patrons do or say, know that it’s not personal. 

One of the bouncers challenges this last point. “Bein’ called a cocksucker isn’t personal?” Dalton basically tells him that such insults only get a rise out of idiots. “And what if somebody calls my mama a whore?” the bouncer demands. To which Dalton replies, simply, “Is she?” 

Cool as ice. 

In the 1989 version, that is Dalton’s superpower. He’s cool. And I don’t just mean that I wish I was his girlfriend. I mean he’s calm. Zen, even. The guy literally has a degree in philosophy. He’s a warrior poet, put in charge of a crew of warriors who have no need of martial instruction, but could benefit from a dose of Dalton’s wisdom. And we get to watch him impart it. We also get to see the results. A montage or two later, the Double Deuce is transformed, from rough-and-tumble saloon to prosperous local hangout. Even the chain link around the stage gets taken down! 

Of course, it’s all a bit of a facade. We see Dalton pushed to the point where he breaks all three of his rules, and several federal laws besides, and it is only thanks to the guidance of his trusted mentor and the pleas of his loving girlfriend that, in the end, he finally regains control of himself and remembers to be nice. That is, right before the residents of the town kill the bad guy for him. A perfect arc.

What do we get in the remake? Gyllenhaal’s Dalton isn’t a cooler. He doesn’t even have experience as a bouncer. He’s just a fighter, one infamous for losing his shit on an international stage. That’s why Miss Cinemasins wants him at her bar: to beat the shit out of people. 

And that turns out to be the only sort of thing he has to teach Billy (Lukas Gage), the one other bouncer on Jackie’s staff. He warns the kid about a feisty patron with a knife under his shirt. “When he takes it out, just take a big step back and pop him in the face. You can do it.” After the guy is removed he tells Billy, “You’re a natural. Don’t forget to lift with your knees.” 

And… that’s it. Punch people and lift with your knees. That is the sum total of Elwood Dalton’s bouncing wisdom. His only effect on the bar is to make Billy marginally better at fighting. Also he hires another guy who I guess helped Billy with the knife guy? I don’t know, I didn’t really remember seeing him when he turned back up, but anyway the dude has scars on his knuckles, so Dalton brings him onto the team. 

We do not see any improvement in the fortunes of The Road House (yes, the road house in this one is actually called The Road House. The movie thinks this is funny). 

Gyllenhaal’s Dalton isn’t particularly cool, either. I mean, he doesn’t react when he gets stabbed, and that is badass–but he’s also a pathetic loser who has nightmares about that one time he won a UFC middleweight title (to be fair, though, who wouldn’t?). Swayze’s Dalton turns his humble barn loft apartment into a cozy, romantic spot; Gyllenhaal’s lives on a shitty houseboat that he doesn’t even bother to clean. Swayze puts the moves on the sexy doctor who can’t resist his charms; Gyllenhaal apologizes to the sexy doctor for saddling her hospital staff with his numerous victims, and gets scared when she tries to kiss him. Swayze sees the entire town get destroyed around him, ruining the lives of several characters we have spent the preceding 70 minutes coming to love and admire, before he finally snaps; Gyllenhaal gets glum and mopey when the bad guy shows him the video of him beating up another professional fighter on his phone, and then snaps for reasons that aren’t particularly clear.

Hell, Swayze is so laid back, he lets a sexy, young Sam Elliott fully put the moves on his woman, secure in the knowledge that she’ll return to his arms when they’re done canoodling. No one tries to put the moves on Gyllenhaal’s girl, probably because she’s the type of woman who would date Elwood Dalton. Huge red flag.

The remake also has a terribly uninspired villain. Jake Gyllenhaal has the acting chops to inject some modicum of charisma into the dreadfully dull lines he’s asked to deliver, but Billy Magnusson is no Ben Gazzara, and Ben Brandt is certainly no Brad Wesley. 

Where Wesley was a crazed business tycoon/crime lord, just as unflappable as Swayze’s Dalton but infinitely more selfish and cruel, Ben Brandt is a loser failson. In a way, he’s no less appropriate a foil to this film’s version of Dalton than Wesley was to the original’s: Gyllenhaal’s Dalton is decidedly uncool, and Brandt is simply a wealthier breed of dud. Instead of Wesley’s simple desire for his inferiors’ obeisance, Brandt is desperate for the approval of his absent father. He only succeeds in dominating his subordinates because they are much, much stupider than him. He commands no respect, not even from his own goons.

Oh, and he isn’t even actually that powerful! At a critical moment in the story, Jackie, the Road House’s owner, pleads with Dalton not to skip town (that’s right, this version of Dalton actually wants to skip town). She tells him, “Hey, Brandt’s out of money. And he’s borrowing from shady guys. And when he doesn’t pay them back, they’re gonna fucking end him.” 

So it turns out Elwood Dalton doesn’t even need to defeat the bad guy. All he’s really expected to do is beat up successive waves of hired thugs until the loser villain destroys himself. This isn’t a contest of virtue against savagery, of fellowship against individual greed. This game will be won by whichever of these two deadbeats can prove to be slightly less pathetic than the other. 

I’m on the edge of my seat!

I could go on all day making unfavorable comparisons between this warmed-over schlock and the brilliant, finely-honed schlock that was the original. But this is an MMA newsletter, and this movie did happen to feature the major motion picture debut of the most famous MMA fighter of all time. So, before we wrap this up… let’s talk about Conor McGregor. 

I don’t know why I expected McGregor to deliver a decent performance. Like you, I’ve seen his Proper 12 ads all over UFC broadcasts. The evidence strongly suggested he was about as comfortable as Jack Donaghy with a script. Still, no one could deny that Conor McGregor has charisma. I kind of thought that would translate to the silver screen. 

It did not. 

McGregor makes this face, and only this face, throughout the entire movie.

I’m only kind of joking. It’s not like his character is called on to do much emoting, but having now seen his performance, that feels like a kindness to the former UFC champ. He also does the Vince McMahon walk, at all times. It is his only means of locomotion, aside from the few moments when he is crashing a car or speedboat. From the moment he is introduced, he spends almost every second of screentime swaggering around making the crazy face you pulled to make your aunt laugh when you were 10. 

The script doesn’t do him any favors, but McGregor doesn’t exactly do the script any favors either. By my estimate, about 70 percent of his lines were done in ADR (or AI?), sometimes even when his mouth is fully visible in frame. He also does a weird sort of… half-Irish accent? Like the director couldn’t understand his natural Dublin lilt and asked him to rein it in? 

You know what, though… the more I talk about this, the more I find myself actually appreciating McGregor’s presence in this movie. He was literally the only thing in the entire film that approached the exuberant fun of the original Road House. Sure, he was bad. But the same goes for maybe half the cast. At least McGregor was bad in a novel way. And he did handle the fight choreography well, even if the camerawork and needless CGI detracted from his skills.

So, should you watch this movie? Well, don’t let me decide for you. Depending on your tastes, it may very well fall on the right side of the good-bad/bad-bad divide. 

All I can say is that my favorite thing about this movie was that it got me to watch the original Road House. The worst part of writing this article was the fact that I was forced to go back to the remake again and again just to remind myself what the hell happened in it. The whole movie hit my brain like cotton candy on the tongue: there for but a moment before it dissolved. As for the original, I didn’t even have to rewatch half the exchanges I quoted in this piece. It is a profoundly memorable movie and, I’ll remind you, this was my very first time watching it. When I did go back to double-check my quotes, I found myself drawn in all over again, watching scene after scene, having a great time. 

If you’ve already got Amazon Prime, then go ahead: watch Doug Liman’s version of this classic pulp flick. Knock yourself out. But word to the wise: you can use the same subscription to watch the original. And that’s the version where a dude says “I used to fuck guys like you in prison” just before Patrick Swayze rips his throat out and crescent kicks him into a river.

I know which I prefer.