Jake Gyllenhaal Is The Only Reason To Watch This Anemic Remake [SXSW 2024]

What is one to make of “Road House”? It’s possible to imagine a more successful version that walks a tonal tightrope, but what’s here can’t help but feel confused, and maybe even a little confusing. If it wants to be a hokey ’80s throwback, it sure does spend a lot of time trying to ingratiate audiences with its many supporting characters, almost all of whom are left by the wayside once the plot takes over. If it wants to be a subversive portrait of a poor, largely non-white community under siege by the whitest and most sniveling of villains (Billy Magnussen, doing what he’s always hired to do), it sure does dance around that subtext without every properly going for the jugular. And it wants to just be a big, silly action movie … Well, it’s startlingly light on the action, although the fist fights and beatdowns Dalton brings to his enemies are sometimes satisfying (Anytime the film expands its scope to include cars and boat chases, its origins as a streaming movie become readily apparent — it looks … budget).

“Road House” is at its most effective when it’s being funny, and Gyllenhaal, playing an action hero who gladly drives a group of baddies to the ER after he smashes their heads in, is more than up for the challenge. And attention must be paid to Arturo Castro, playing a pliant and all-too-reasonable henchman, who delivers the film’s most effective jokes. The rest of the unwieldy supporting cast, including generally talented folks like Daniela Melchior, Jessica Williams, and Joaquim de Almeida, vanish into the background. But not before we learn more about them than you’d expect, falsely promising that these many tendrils are going somewhere.