2/5 stars
Rowdy Herrington’s gleefully ridiculous 1989 beat-’em-up Road House cemented the reputation of its star Patrick Swayze as both smouldering romantic lead and formidable action hero.
The actor would appear in better films, like Ghost (1990) and Point Break (1991), but nowhere were his two sides so perfectly in concert as when he played Dalton, mulleted bouncer par excellence.
Thirty-five years later it falls to Jake Gyllenhaal, Swayze’s co-star in Donnie Darko, to resurrect the mythic minder.
Under the direction of Doug Liman, who gave us The Bourne Identity that launched the Jason Bourne film franchise, this Road House trades the backwaters of Missouri for the significantly sexier Florida Keys, with Dalton now a disgraced UFC fighter making ends meet by taking out the trash.
Liman’s film plays out much the same as its predecessor did – so similarly in fact that original screenwriter R. Lance Hill sued the production for a credit – albeit without the highly quotable one-liners.
Dalton is hired to scare off a violent biker gang who have been causing trouble at an otherwise picturesque watering hole. When not politely breaking bones, taking names, and rising to mythic status within the besieged community, he finds time to hook up with a female doctor (Daniela Melchior) who stitches him up at A&E.
Inevitably, he also attracts the ire of Billy Magnussen’s shady gangster, a corrupt local tycoon who is eager to seize the waterfront property for himself.
The film’s big-ticket draw is Gyllenhaal, who commits himself admirably to the role of shirtless protector with a torso even harder than the beatings he doles out.
What he may lack in dreamboat looks, Gyllenhaal more than makes up for with steely charisma, which is more than can be said for Conor McGregor. The former UFC champion makes his acting debut as psychotic heavy Knox, brought in to stop Dalton.
He is an atrocious actor, yet wields an undeniable threat because of his formidable physical presence.
Criminally, where Road House falters is in its action sequences. Gone is the throat-ripping and the simmering homoeroticism that pulsated throughout the original, replaced by a competent if uninspired combination of mixed martial arts and conventional bar brawling.
Liman shoots these sequences with an endlessly spinning, CG-augmented camera that not only obscures the action rather than elevating it, but threatens to give the audience a concussion in the process.
Add to this lingering uncertainty about just how to play the material – Liman commits neither to gritty realism nor a campy sense of heightened fun – and the end result is a decidedly lightweight encounter.
Road House will start streaming on Amazon Prime on March 21.