With the recent products the film industry has released, I’ve found that it’s become harder than ever for me to really enjoy sitting through a movie.
One of my last theater experiences was Uncharted, and even after giving it a second chance, I wished I had stayed home instead. There’s just something about the quality of what is being presented that has never appealed to my taste: everything is being remade, nothing seems to be original, and don’t even get me started on the downfall of some of the best franchises. Marvel really has taken a turn for the worst, and they would’ve held my respect if everything stopped after Avengers: Endgame.
Even though there are a few recent films that I’ve come to like, I’d much prefer staying in to binge older films. Rom-coms in the past had a vibrance that can’t be repeated, and even the Gary Cooper westerns held my attention in the best way possible.
However, with the knowledge of what is airing at the moment, I went into the remake, Road House, with extremely low expectations.
It follows the story of former UFC fighter, Elwood Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal), after reluctantly accepting a job from Frankie (Jessica Williams) as a bouncer at a bar in Glass Keys, Florida. Thinking he’s finally escaping his troubled past, he settles into a routine until he finally learns the real reason why Frankie sought him out for the job: the nighttime crowd at the bar is reckless and uncontrollable. Dalton seems to handle it well, given the circumstances, but he soon realizes that the whole town is worse off than he could’ve ever imagined.
For starters, the mixed reviews I’ve heard gave me no indication as to exactly what I was to expect. I knew that it was a remake of the 1989 film starring Patrick Swayze, and remembering how much I adored that movie made me anxious, knowing that this could only go downhill from there.
Almost immediately, I knew my ground-level excitement wouldn’t rise when Post Malone was one of the first people shown on camera. I’m not the biggest fan of his in the first place, and to see him in an adaptation of a loved movie was off-putting, to say the least.
I could infer a lot from just that beginning scene; witnessing the first fight in an action-heavy script, saying the words “absolutely awful” aren’t strong enough to explain how horrendous it was. The entire time, it was similar to watching a fight in a video game made by a middle schooler. They were so horribly over-animated to the point where I fought to avert my eyes each time.
Not only did the action scenes look like they were coordinated by a 12-year-old, but the script had some of the worst writing I’ve ever heard in a well-watched film. Equivalent to that of a fifth grader’s attempt at an essay, the few romance scenes made me nauseous, and the trash talk before fights gave me severe second-hand embarrassment.
I suppose the only nice thing I can say about this movie is that I enjoyed Gyllenhaal—not necessarily his performance, but the amount of work he put into getting his body to look a certain way, I have to say, was impressive. Usually, I thoroughly enjoy the work he does on his projects, but even his performative gift wasn’t enough to save this film.
Overall, one of my favorite things to do is recommend movies for people to watch, but I would never submit anybody to the torture of sitting through Road House.
