Road House 2024 Movie Review

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Road House is an action movie remake that sees an EX-UFC fighter Dalton Elwood, take a bouncer Job at a Florida Keys Road House. But soon after he takes the job, Dalton discovers that this paradise is not all it seems. 

I’ll be straight. I did not like how the Road House 2024 movie ended. 

Sure, the movie has one of the best bar brawls and close combat fight scenes. But in terms of story, the film loses its plot in its third act and become a cartoonish action movie with dumb villains. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

The Good 

What’s annoying about Road House 2024 is how it starts out so strong and then nose dives at the end.

When it comes to close combat fight scenes and bar brawls, Road House 2024 has one of the best fight choreography and camera work. From the very beginning, the movie shows its dedication to these short but brutal combat scenes, and a great example comes within the movie’s first five minutes, where we see Post Malone beat the living hell out of his opponent in an underground fight club.

But asides from giving us a fantastic opening, the fight pit scene does a good job of introducing the audience to movie’s protagonist, Dalton.

Jake Gyllenhaal lives up to Dalton’s reputation by showing how capable the former UFC fighter is in a fight. The moment the Dalton arrives at the Road House bar, he establishes order and shows the existing staff how to lay down the law. Dalton also strikes the perfect balance between violence and comedy (at least in the first half of the movie), and I love how he switched from breaking the Biker gang’s bones in one moment to taking them to the emergency room in another. 

But with all this praise, you might wonder where it all went wrong for Road House 2024. 

The Bad

Well, like I said, the film’s villains were beyond incompetent and their grand plans come crashing in the third act. 

From that point, the movie ceases all pretense of having a coherent goal or story for its villains, and instead it shows them throwing everything at the wall until something sticks (and it’s not even funny).  

Not only do these idiots take the worst approach to force out the Road House Owner Frankie (Jessica Willams), but they also enact conflicting plans that sabotage their common goal. Even when their fixer, Knox (Ewan McGregor), joins the story, he just brings daft chaos that burns everyone, including his employer. Plus, Knox is just a terrible character. (Terrible accent, Terrible dressing, Terrible logic. Terrible everything).

Instead of developing useless villains, the effort could have been directed towards exploring better side characters. I mean we could have learnt more about people like Frankie who hinted at knowing a bit more about the families that built the Florida Key. Hell, I have would have even preferred seeing Brandt’s father in jail, as he felt like a more interesting character.

In all honesty, I think Knox would have better if he was the strong quiet type that got the job done without question. Similar to Dave Bautisa in Spectre. That would have made his character more interesting, plus I would have been more invested in his final fight with Dalton.

Verdict