.

This film is pretty much what you’d expect from a contemporary remake of the classic 80s movie about the bar bouncer who comes across as all calm and zen because that is how he keeps the brutality inside of him in check. The setting and other details have changed, Patrick Swayze has been replaced by Jake Gyllenhaal and it has had a modern day cinema wash across the whole thing but it is as though in some improve show in the far future someone from the audience has shouted ‘Do Road House in the style of Fast X’ and this is what we’ve got. This doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining but there is very little to surprise.

But for a couple of aspects. Gyllenhaal’s version of the reformed but unemployed fighter has a delightfully wry and gracious approach to hospitalising people. It is reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher in the way he carefully explains to his over confident assailants what will happen if they insist on attacking him so as to give them every chance to step down, before unapologetically taking them down when they don’t. There is a politeness to the way Gyllenhaal plays this thought that gives his characterisation an endearing edge. This isn’t quite sustained throughout but then neither is it over played and his incredible likability remains. He is also given a great foil in Conor McGregor’s Knox whose personality and antisocial tendencies from what I gather from a quick google are those of Conor McGregor but what leads to multiple arrests in real life is entertaining in a movie, even if I fear this might legitimatise some of his behaviours in the eyes of the actor. I hope he realises he is playing the bad guy here and not an antihero.

Then there is the shooting of the fight scenes and the action which puts you as an audience member right in the thick of it. There is a POV fight at one point but that has been done better before (see 2017’s The Villainess), rather it is the way the camera stays tight in on the collisions and the crashes. There is one moment where the hero narrowly misses getting hit by a truck that really makes you feel as close to danger as the people on screen. It is thrilling stuff.

The Ripley Factor

Unfortunately the gender politics doesn’t get much of an update. The trends of the decade we are in compared to that of thirty five years ago does mean there are more women and less sex, but none of the female characters get any character development or a huge amount to do other than offer caution or motivation when they get kidnapped or imperiled.

2024’s Road House offers an enjoyable two hours then, even if there are few innovations here.