"Nobody wins a fight." That's what Dalton says when the hot doctor asks "Do you ever win a fight." And that's just about the only real similarity between these two masterpieces (from James Dalton in the original and Elwood Dalton in the reboot).
Ok so that's not true. In both movies, Dalton is a cooler, a bouncer boss who keeps the fights out of the bar. And there's a bad guy who wants the bar for some mysterious reason for only about the first half of the movie.
Then there's the owner who is paying Dalton an outrageous amount of money to take care of their bar because of all the fights that keep breaking out. And they both killed a guy in their past. Oh, and no one tells them about the bad guy until he finds out about the bad guy, and then all of a sudden everyone wants to talk about the bad guy. And the bad guy seems to have another fighter show up to take care of Dalton. And they both have their Doctor like-love interests.
And wait, there's more! There's that pivotal moment when Dalton, on his way out of town, defeated, angry, and to the point where he has completely given up, occurs. That makes Dalton go a little nuts. Dalton loses all of his goodness and grace and just flips a shit until the bad guys are either dead or in an ER somewhere. In my opinion, in 1989, I thought Swayze really pulled that shit off. He went pretty nuts. But Gyllenhaal takes it to an entirely new level in the reboot. Also, I should mention that one of the original writers Lance Hill also co-wrote the reboot.
Now there are some pretty huge differences between the two movies, too. Let's start with the original. In the first movie, in 1989, Swayze was an actor I looked up to. He was the kind sensitive skinny guy who kicked everyone's ass and got the hot girl in the end. He danced, he did love scenes, he fought, he did it all. Patrick Swayze was in the movie no guy wants to admit they liked, Dirty Dancing, back in 1987, but I actually love that movie. Of course, everyone saw Swayze in The Outsiders, 1983, and that was a movie every guy could admit they liked back then.
Back to Road House, the first one. Dalton gets laid, obviously, with Kelly Lynch, who plays Dr. Elizabeth Clay, and he beats people up, smokes like a chimney, and seems to fix any problem that comes up without any hitch. What drives me nuts, is that this really smart hot doctor doesn't mention to Dalton that smoking could kill him? Maybe give him cancer? Couldn't the writers have just sort of mentioned that just for fuck's sake? I wish I were even being funny saying that. Maybe it was too late by then. Anyway.
There's a small but memorable amount of tits and ass in this movie, namely the doctor, which is on par for nearly every movie like this. And of course the bad guy, Brad Wesley played by Ben Gazzara has his fighter guy that no one really knows come in to take care of Dalton. And has his hot blonde girlfriend dance semi-nude at the bar for...literally no reason at all. It's right about now shit gets weird. Especially the completely awkward fight scene toward the end when the bad guy's bad guy says "I used to fuck guy's like you in prison." Yeah, it wasn't too weird up to this point, now shit just got kinda fuckin' weird. Not that Dalton ripping a guys trachea out of his neck wasn't weird, but I digress. He almost did it again at the end with the bad guy, but chooses to let him keep his trachea. Everyone else in town shows up out of the blue and takes shot gun shots at him and it somehow takes four shots to kill him at close range, and he's not even screaming like mad after the first one either. What's really fucked up, is if Dalton simply said "Hey guys, you wanna come kill the bad guy?" it would have made his life slightly easier taking out all the henchmen.
The biggest difference between this first movie and the second one, is that this one is so damn serious. There is literally nothing funny or even slightly chuckle-worthy in the first movie at all. I mean, Wade offers a mild almost smile at some things, but not much. Mostly he comes in, fights, hits on Dalton's girlfriend, ya know. Best friend shit. But Everyone is serious, the music is serious, all the situations are serious...it's just serious. Oh, and his best friend is Sam Elliott, who plays Wade Garrett. He comes in like he taught Dalton everything he knew about fighting and left out a few parts like dick-punching and knee breaking that he happens to enjoy very much. And he's fucking serious about it. And maybe the polar bear at the end was funny back in 1989 but today? Meh.
So there's a lot to love about the original, but the 2024 version could not have been a better reboot. Sure, it took twenty-five years, but it was worth the wait.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays the new and improved Dalton; an ex-UFC Championship fighter who killed one of his friends in the ring. In this movie, other than the flashbacks to that fight, he seems to have some fun with fighting. I mean, he unapologetically enjoys the fight a lot. And he tries to keep things fair by letting people know, offhandedly, that whatever he's about to do is going to hurt pretty fucking bad. The first fight he's really in, which I'm sure is in every trailer out there, he steps outside and asks the guy if he has health insurance. Then he asks if there is a hospital nearby. And the guy and his three buddies all are glad they have it, because they all wind up in the ER with physical and emotional scars from getting embarrassed so badly while having their asses kicked. The absolute funny part is no one would loan him a car, so he drove them in his car to the ER. While they're driving he says "Bump", just before a bump, and they're all moaning from all the trauma he gave them. It's those little things throughout the movie that make it worth seeing. He has a lot of dialogue in fights, which is honestly pretty funny, like he's not treating his ADHD at all, and it seems even near death, he still has a decent sense of humor about everything. No roundhouse kicks or ripping tracheas out of people's necks, but he's got what he needs to fuck everyone up. Personally, the "this piano isn't in tune" was one of my favorites, as he was bashed up against the piano keys.
And then Conor McGregor, who actually was a legitimate MMA fighter in real life, plays this absolutely insane "Knox" fighter who loves to steal shit, blow shit up, walk around mostly naked and literally does not have an off button at all. Nothing is putting this crazy fuck down. Now I wanna say that, other than doing some voice acting in Call of Duty and a couple other games, this is his first time on screen as an actor. And it better than I expected. He is just the bad guy's bad guy we need here. He's insane, he's angry, while being happy about being angry, and wherever he goes and whatever he does in the movie, he fucking owns it. All of it. It's honestly a great character made for the perfect actor.
Anyway, that's about it as far as the review goes, so I'm going to do a point system for both movies together. Because, seriously, you can't NOT watch the original. I mean, technically you can do whatever the hell you want, but I'm just gonna suggest seeing the first one at some point, even after the reboot. It's always fun to see the roots of a great film. You'll certainly see a huge difference between the two, and hopefully you'll appreciate these movies as much as I do.
Tits and ass: 5. Not much, but it was pleasant.
Music/score: 8 Great music that you'd find in a road house.
Fight Scenes: 8 Both movies had pretty memorable fight scenes, I mean, I should fucking hope so!
Blowing shit up: 8. A lot more at the end of the first, but the second wasn't too shabby.
Humor? : 5. I gotta say, the seriousness of the first kinda canceled out the humor in the second.
Which brings the grand total for both movies to a whopping 6.8, which means absolutely nothing. They were two really fun movies to watch and I would recommend both of them.
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