Movie Review: Road House (2024 Prime Video) *No Spoilers*

Movie Review: Road House (2024 Prime Video) No Spoilers

I'm not entirely sure if I've seen the original 1989 Road House. I feel like I probably saw it on home video but I don't really remember it, and, just watching that movie's trailer, Patrick Swayze seems too pretty to be a bouncer. I mean, he has such great hair in that film!

All this to say, I don't have any attachment to the original film that Road House (2024) is based upon.

I will say this isn't really my kind of movie but I enjoyed the trailer, particularly the opening fight sequence, where Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) asks if any of the guys have health insurance. I was so glad to see this sequence has so much more to it, and is a real highlight in terms of both action, humor and really setting the tone for who Dalton is.

The story is pretty straight forward. Road House owner, Frankie (Jessica Williams), is having some serious problems with a motorcycle gang terrorizing her establishment. After going through several bouncers, she casts her net a bit wider and finds Dalton, a former UFC fighter, who she believes can go head to head with the gang. Naturally escalation and carnage ensues.

Fortunately it's not all wall to wall fight sequences. The movie does take the time to introduce a few supporting characters, and just enough of what they're about to start to care about them. I particularly liked Charlie (Hannah Love Lanier), an overly enthusiastic bookshop sales assistant who kind of frames the whole plot of the movie in fun exchanges throughout.

I can't say Jake Gyllenhaal has ever been a big draw card for me. I've never seen him in anything that I didn't like but he usually plays characters that kind of blend in (at least that's my impression). Even in Spider-man Far From Home he's playing a guy that initially just blended in at Stark Industries.

However, in Road House, Jake really steps up his game, not only looking the part of a former UFC fighter but also giving the character some quirks, and a very likeable nature that, for me at least, would love to see in another movie.

The fight sequences are all very good. I preferred the earlier ones, such as Dalton's initial meeting with the motorcycle gang, with his queries about insurance. These kind of felt more grounded and clearly demonstrated Dalton's ability is streets above his adversaries.

Jake really sells these scenes too with the dialogue and an unflinching attitude to what may happen next. I actually got Clint Eastwood vibes from the gang scene reminiscent of with the motorcycle gang scenes in Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and Any Which Way You Can (1980).

Later in the movie, if you really think about it, neither Dalton or his main adversary should be standing after their first round of punches. However that wouldn't be fun, so you just have to run with it. I imagine, anyone who likes these kind of fight films, like John Wick etc., aren't too fussed with reality over how cool the fight actually looks and plays out.

I thoroughly enjoyed Road House. It's fun escapism, updated with a modern look, and good humor. It's easily one of the best, and most memorable, roles I've seen Jake Gyllenhaal play. I'd definitely see another story featuring Dalton if they could find something that wasn't just a repeat of this film's plot.

Comments

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

TET Artwork Diary: Nansen The Cabin Boy's Cat of the Belgian Sailing Ship, RV Belgica, Trapped in an Antarctica Winter, 1897

Belgica in the ice. 1897. Photo: Adrien de Gerlache Y ou wouldn't ordinarily think of cats and penguins together in the same image but that's what I found myself creating when thinking of an idea for my next painting. I have painted penguins before as part of my Australian Animals series from the early 2000's, and I have a couple of cartoon penguins (that you can see in a very old post, Designing Formal Penguins ) I created for a Yeti skateboard graphic, so, I didn't just randomly think, 'penguins'. Recently I had a revelation about my art, in that I don't simply paint pictures of cats, I paint 'relationships'. Almost all of my paintings of cats feature two or more cats, or a cat with something, such as a butterfly, bird, fish, goat... and why not a penguin? However, I didn't want to just paint some random cat with some random penguin. I wondered if there was ever any real cats in history that may have a reason to meet a penguin? Turns out, on...

"Ya Mum Reads it..."

You'l find my own Photography in this blog too. Quite a while back I did a survey that tells you what kind of audience credibility your blog has. I'm not sure what the score was but I do remember the commentary which boiled down to "Your mother reads your blog regularly but you probably don't have much wider appeal". Fuck you survey! (Hi Mum, sorry for cursing! I do appreciate you reading, really I do!) I don't know how many regular readers I have, if any, but I do know, on average this blog receives more than 4000 page hits per month, much of it coming from search engines like Google. Perhaps of some interest is my new current top search entry point of all time, people looking for Bert and Ernie, who I wrote some commentary about when it was officially announced that the Sesame Street Characters were not gay . Which is quite a departure from Krippin Virus from a few years back when the movie I am Legend came out. The thing about this blog is t...

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...

Movie Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) No Spoilers

T his is the first time in quite a while we've seen a live action Spider-Man that is, essentially, a fully formed, grown up superhero, fighting crime on his own terms rather than looking to mentors to guide him. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day it's four years after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home . No one knows who Peter Parker is but Spider-Man has become a local legend, helping to keep New York free of crime. Personally, Peter is still struggling with not reconnecting with his former friends, whose lives are again put at risk when a new foe crosses his path. If you're a fan of Tom Holland's Spider-Man films, and the MCU in general this film should not only not disappoint, you may even consider it to be one of the best MCU films you've seen in a while. I really enjoyed all the quick cameos by small time Spider-Man villains even though I don't know many of them. Their inclusion really started to broaden the scope of the character, despite this installment ...

Embarrassing Yourself with Doof Doof Music

Ever since Spinal Tap popularized the notion of turning an amp up to eleven audio systems have been rising to the challenge of louder, more awesome sound. In particular, car audio systems have embraced the notion of the bigger the noise the better the sound must surely be. What I'd like to know is, if these sound systems are so good, why do they make all music sound the same... Doof, Doof, Doof? You've all heard them. Pimped up cars, with audio systems seemingly worth more than gold, volume blasting way past eleven. Sound waves booming long before you make a positive visual on the car... Doof, Doof, Doof. It has to be the audio system right? Surely all these people can't be playing the same tune? Doof, Doof, Doof. Could it be that the more money spent on a car sound system the less musical range it will actually play? Maybe these people can't afford to buy music after purchasing the audio system so they all play the same demo track? Doof, doof, doof. In my own car I hav...

Movie Review: Project Hail Mary (2026) No Spoilers

T his wasn't a movie I particularly wanted to see even though it's right in my wheelhouse, realistic Sci-fi. However, after Project Hail Mary did so well in theatres it became a movie I wanted to check out once it reached streaming. In this case I watched it on Amazon Prime Video. It wasn't really on my radar because, on the surface, it's not anything I haven't seen before, even quite recently. Lone astronaut goes on some kind of mission, mission fails, astronaut tries to salvage the mission and somehow finds a way home. However, in my opinion, what makes this film different is in the detail. There are a lot of often seen tropes here presented in new ways, that may capture your imagination. The movie opens with science teacher, Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), waking up from deep sleep on a spaceship, far from Earth, with no memory of why he is there. Presumably a side effect of basically being put in storage while the spaceship travels across vast distances. From the...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog