"Road House" Rundown: Pain Doesn't Hurt... but maybe remakes do

https://letterboxd.com/needsintro/

In this episode, Victor delves into the world of cinema, discussing his recent exploration of the original 'Roadhouse' film and the new reboot starring Jake Gyllenhaal, directed by Doug Lyman. He shares his thoughts on the remake's modernized elements, compares it to the original, and highlights the contrast in themes, fight scenes, and performances. Victor also reflects on the broader context of 'Roadhouse's' cult classic status amidst other significant 1989 films, offering insights into what makes a movie memorable. The episode includes a detailed breakdown of both 'Roadhouse' films, complemented by recommendations for films that blend action, comedy, and unintentional camp, akin to the pleasures offered by the 'Roadhouse' saga.

00:00 Welcome to the Show: A Dive into the Ghostbusters Franchise and More 00:40 Letterboxd Shoutout and Social Engagement 01:10 Deep Dive into the Original Roadhouse: A First-Time Viewing 01:58 Exploring the Cultural Impact and Box Office of Roadhouse 03:21 The Unintentional Comedy and Camp of Roadhouse 07:45 The Awkward and Amusing Aspects of Roadhouse 22:28 Recommendations: Films with a Similar Vibe to Roadhouse 31:24 Schwarzenegger's Last Huge Hit & Cult Classics 32:06 Exploring Lockout: A Space Jail Adventure 33:40 Streaming Recommendations & Roadhouse Revisits 34:36 Deep Dive into Doug Liman's Career 37:11 Reviewing the New Roadhouse: A Gritty Reimagining 39:16 The Darker Tones and Action Sequences of Roadhouse 42:16 Character Dynamics and the Shift in Tone 56:22 Concluding Thoughts on Roadhouse and Genre Films

Episode Transcript

Victor (00:00):
Welcome everybody to another episode of Need Some Introduction.
As usual, I'm your host, Victor.
I hope you have checked out our mostrecent episodes where we discussed
the entire Ghostbusters franchise.
And then in a completely different vein,going low and then going high, let's
say, discussing the really interestingAnatomy of Fall, available on Hulu,

(00:20):
the Academy Award nominated film.
Going more low culture again, andthere's nothing wrong with low culture.
We'll be discussing a camp classic ofa sort, the original Roadhouse film and
its remake, the very popular on streamingright now, Jake Gyllenhaal, direct
to Amazon Prime, Doug Lyman directed.
Very stylish reboot of this originalfilm from 1989 before we get to those

(00:46):
discussions Just a reminder that Iam now on letterboxd If you're on
there, feel free to follow me checkthe show notes for the link to my
profile Or just search for need someintroduction podcast In the app itself.
I have seen a few of you followingme now, so feel free to reach out or
comment on some of my reviews or lists.
And of course, any feedbacksalways appreciated.

(01:07):
Reach out to us need someintroduction at gmail.
com later in this episode, I'll bebreaking down that new roadhouse remake.
But before we get there, I wanted todelve into my thoughts in watching
Roadhouse, which I had never seen before.
I should have seen this.
This has always been kind of acult classic or cable classic.
I was of age.

(01:28):
I was a teenager when the original filmcame out, missed it in movie theaters.
It was rated R.
So maybe I was still, I was definitelyseeing rated R movies in movie theaters.
Even then it used to be pretty easyto go see rated R movies at that time.
Even if you were below therecommended age, but I was pretty
selective about what I would go see.
So I had seen like Friday the 13th movies.

(01:48):
We usually saw those likein a group for example.
But this was not such a huge hit thatit became something you had to see.
As a matter of fact, I looked at thebox office just out of curiosity.
It came out the same yearas Batman and Indiana Jones.
And The Last Crusade, the Ghostbusterssequel, which we discussed recently,

(02:11):
of course, Ghostbusters 2, Honey,I Shrunk the Kids, Lethal Weapon
2, of course, which I saw intheaters multiple times that year.
So a big year.
1989 had a lot of really big,huge, culturally significant films.
And to a certain segment of theaudience, this is in that classic.
mold.
As a matter of fact, when I discussedGhostbusters 2 in that Ghostbusters

(02:33):
conversation earlier this week with Nickand Ray, they called out Roadhouse as one
of these seminal films from this year.
Well, all that is to saythat it wasn't for me.
It, once again, I looked atthe box office, all the films
I listed before made 100, 200.
Batman made over 250 million back then.
Think about that.
That is inflates to 700 millionor something insane right now.

(02:56):
So huge, hugely successfulfilms in that particular year.
Roadhouse made 30 million, which wastotally solid at the time, uh, for this
type of film, a relatively low budget.
Action film.
So definitely had it followingin theaters, but not a
blockbuster, not a huge hit.
I think it's following really grew onceit hit cable and was just on all the time.

(03:19):
And I can understand that too.
I honestly have to say that Ifound most of this film kind of
boring and unintentionally funny.
Um, But the last half hour or so I reallystarted vibing with the film and really
enjoyed The last third of the film I'd saylike when it goes over the top and it has
these really bizarre choices Shifting intone like it's really just off the rails

(03:43):
by the end where they're mixing horrorand slapstick I really liked all of that.
Like I was like, wow, this film isjust hitting all my pleasure centers
and that I didn't even know I had,to be honest, because I really
don't like campy things in general.
So it really has to be kind ofaccidentally campy for me to enjoy it.
When someone's intentionallyleaning into the camp, I
definitely don't like that tone.

(04:05):
So I really liked the last, uh, Third ofthe film, for example, and really earlier
on wasn't connecting with the materialreally felt to just awkward and amateurish
so I can imagine having seen this oncable, for example, and stumbling upon
it in the middle of the film and beinglike, Oh, yeah, I've heard about this.
Let me check this out, jumpingin the middle and being like,

(04:25):
wow, this film is really crazy.
It's not at all what I expected it to be.
And once again, that's my experiencenow, even watching it, not what
the film I expected to see atall based on its reputation.
And then falling in love withit, you know, in that way.
So in a way, stumbling upon this oncable in mid flight, which was an
experience we had back in the dayfor anybody who obviously younger
listeners won't even understand this,but you watch stuff that was on HBO,

(04:50):
for example, maybe TNT and TBS wasstarting to show things, edited versions
of popular films, but primarily youwould see things on HBO if you had HBO.
So once again, anothersubset of the population.
Yeah.
And you would justcatch it when it was on.
But of course it was on all the time.
You would have, if it was anon movie, like The Terminator
is a perfect example of this.

(05:11):
The Terminator is a film that was prettymodestly successful in the theaters.
Not iconic, but very popular for a verylow budget science fiction horror movie.
And then on cable, itwas on loop all the time.
You could barely turn HBO on andnot stumble upon The Terminator.
If you just had it on for four orfive hours, The Terminator would be

(05:32):
showing at some point foundationalto a whole generation of movie nerds,
but that all happened after the fact.
And this is a similar thing, Ithink, although this movie is
not as good as the Terminator.
It doesn't have the same kind of legacy.
So what you're getting here is myimpressions of this thing, which I just
saw recently for the very first time.
So take all this with agrain of salt in that regard.

(05:54):
You may love this film and be offendedby my commentary on it, but I do think I
appreciated the things that were there.
I just have a question, and I thinkthis is my biggest interest with this.
The definition of what is a good moviebecause I think, you know, if you follow
me on Letterboxd, you'll see that Igave this film two stars, but that makes

(06:14):
it sound like it's just a bad movie.
But this is a hard movie for me to rankbecause there are two star movies that
I just think are boring from beginningto end or have good intentions and
just fail at what they're trying to do.
This is a film that I think I'm givingit two stars because it is failing
at some of the intentions it has.

(06:36):
So in that regard, if I just have tocompare it to other films, if other
films had the same kind of weaknessas this film had, purely from a
technical and character situation,you're going to call it a bad movie.
But I want to be clear thatit's entertaining in its
own way, in its own badness.
And that's kind of what I want toget into with my recommendations.
So stay tuned for my recommendationsbecause I think these are some things

(06:59):
that I want to recommend to youthat do this better intentionally
being the over the top action moviethat is here or unintentionally
like so bad it's good type film.
So some of my favorites.
that I think kind of will give you someof the same pleasures that you get from
Roadhouse, if you are a Roadhouse fan.
So do stay tuned for thatafter my walkthrough of this

(07:23):
Roadhouse original recipe.
And before my conversation withCelia, the Roadhouse reboot, I
will have quite a list, actually.
When I was compiling this, I cameup with quite a list of films.
When I was struggling at first,I found a whole bunch of them.
So do stay tuned for that.
And I'll probably create a liston Letterboxd if that's more
convenient for you to track down.
And I'll include that linkin the show notes as well.

(07:45):
So the first thing I came awaywith from seeing the film was the
idea that there are people outthere that are offended that you
would even try to remake Roadhouse.
Now, I don't know if it's a goodidea to remake Roadhouse, and I'll
save some of that commentary forlater, but the idea that this is
some unimpeachable classic is pretty.

(08:05):
amazing to me because I really feellike it's almost an accidentally more
entertaining film than it tends to be.
Some of the things it's tryingto do, it's doing pretty well.
Some of the things it's tryingto do, it's doing pretty badly,
and that's part of its charm.
And I do agree that it's going tobe hard to try to duplicate that
experience, that feeling, but thatit's some kind of unimpeachable classic

(08:27):
is, I think, a little overstated.
Basically, I think that this film islike Patrick Swayze's mullet itself.
It's so out of style.
It's in style again, and the mulletis kind of making a comeback here.
Or maybe it just neverwent out of style at all.
But in watching the film,I found it so strange.
This world we enter where this cooler,which I think is a kind of a cool

(08:48):
idea, by the way, and something Iwasn't familiar with, that you have
the bouncers, but then you have thecooler, and he wants you to be nice.
He wants you to keep thingsunder control until they can't
be kept under control anymore.
I actually like that too, by the way.
I like that bit of dialogue.
It's really corny.
This whole idea that he hasa philosophy degree from NYU.
and now is cooling in bars.
It's a pretty funnybiography to say the least.

(09:10):
No matter where he travels in the country,all the bouncer bouncers know who he is.
He's famous for his bouncing capabilities.
I also love the actual roadhouseitself, where this is such a
violent place to hang out with.
I'm not sure why anybody would evenshow up to be honest with you, even
though Jeff Healy is there performing.
But the next thing that reallysurprised me was when he shows up
at the roadhouse for the first time.
And the fights themselves.

(09:31):
I was really put off.
And once again, based on my expectations,the bar is so incredibly brightly lit.
I have never seen a bar this brightly lit.
And I have heard people makethe excuse that, Hey, it's 1989.
This is what movies look like back then.
And I'm like, this is not whatmovies look like back then.
Look at the fight sequences in eventhe cannonball run or the last detail

(09:53):
all the way back in the seventies.
You can make a lo fi ballroom brawl,which is It's exciting to watch and
it doesn't have to be on a big budget.
And as far as the way the style of theinside of a nightclub, for example,
you think about the sequences inthe Terminator or even 48 hours.

(10:14):
And those movies are way before this film.
So I was shocked to see a presentationof this is what the roadhouse looks like
when the lights are turned all the way up.
It's like going down the supermarket,uh, you know, frozen food aisle.
And at first I thought this waskind of amateurish and only in
retrospect, here's where I'm goingto have a very generous read of
this, and I think I'm probably right.

(10:35):
In retrospect, this thing reminded me,if anything, of like a saloon brawl in
the movie from the 1950s or something.
And I think that is, I'm goingto give the movie credit here,
I think that is intentionalbecause this is a Western, right?
You got the.
surly outsider with the mysterious past.
He is, is Shane basically, right?

(10:57):
He comes in, he's goingto clean up the city.
You have the mean local rancher, ormaybe the better equivalent is the local
rancher who is just the rich guy whokind of owns everything in the area,
but he's got the out of control kid who,although we have that embodied in one
particular character here, one in the sameBen Gazzara is the psychopath and the.

(11:20):
businessman or the successfullocal businessman as well.
All that is to say that the archetypesof a old school Western are here.
So I do think that this is intentional,even in it's very strange lighting
decisions and set design decisions,because some of these fights look
amateurish, but once again, maybethis is, Hey, we are going to make
this look like an old school saloonbrawl from the 1950s, really put our

(11:45):
finger on a scale to let everybody knowthat this is an old school Western.
So.
Maybe something that I dingedthe film for as I'm watching it,
I maybe, in retrospect, give itsome credit for playing that up.
The next thing that really stood outhere for me in watching this is how
much nudity and sex is in this movie.
It's funny that there is a wholesocial media conversation going on

(12:07):
in this moment as to whether do weeven need to have sex in movies.
Isn't it just exploitative, to whichI say, and I'm happy to see this by
the way, there are multiple filmsthat were nominated for Academy Awards
this year, Poor Things being just one,which are very frank about sexuality.
So I'm glad to say that you can dealwith sex in a movie in a mature way.

(12:29):
And I want to be clear, I do think thatthere are these nightmare stories in
the past of women who had to have sex.
nudity, or had their characterrewritten to include nudity.
And it was cheap nudity.
You'd have a comedy where you walkinto the bathroom and the girl just
happens to have her top off or whatever.
So imposing nudity just to haveit in there, just to titillate

(12:49):
the audience, I am completely inagreement with getting rid of that
kind of use of nudity in movies.
But that we can't have amature film about nudity.
Sex amongst adults is a ridiculousor even sex scenes and we'll
talk about how sexless the newRoadhouse movie is compared to this
one this one on the other hand.
They have every opportunity.

(13:09):
This is the kind of Exploitative overthe top nudity, which is kind of shocking
to see now Especially because thereis nothing titillating or sexy about
this and I do wonder like when you havethat striptease hilarious striptease
by the way Where the bad guys moleher his girl is forced to strip in
front of everybody at the Roadhouse.

(13:30):
One of the worst stripteases I'veever seen, as everyone just stands
around, arms crossed, watching her.
This is hilariously awkward,but maybe this speaks to some
of the making of this film.
I'd love to hear a commentary onit and see if there was, maybe this
was something that was shoehornedin, like, we need more sex.
We need to titillate more.
So they're kind of forcing the directorto add these scenes to something

(13:53):
that he thought wasn't really in hismind maybe saw as more of a throwback
1950s western, and maybe that iswhere some of the awkwardness of the
tone shifts in the film comes in.
But we have not only this nudity andthis striptease, we also have the fact
that, um, There's this sex scene betweenKelly Lynch and Patrick Swayze with their

(14:18):
matching feathered bangs, which I love.
They definitely go tothe same hairstylist.
She seems to be taller than him and,uh, they just go for it right away.
He smashes her up against this stone wall.
Once again, it's good tohave adults having sex.
It's a part of life.
We should acknowledge that in ourfilms and in our art, but this is

(14:38):
not a good sex scene in my opinion.
I'm sorry.
This is not sexy.
Uh, pretty hilarious.
No one wears underpants,apparently, in this film.
Except for those really big grannypanties during the striptease.
That's the only panties we see,kind of, in this whole entire film.
So yeah, a lot of this is justawkwardly shoehorned in there.
I do also love some of thesecrazy plot machinations.
One of my favorites is the fact thatKelly Lynch's doctor character, finds

(15:01):
out Dalton has a degree from NYUfrom looking at his medical records.
I love that he brings hismedical records with him, which
by the way, not a bad idea.
In 1989, there were no electronicmedical records, especially if you know
you're going to end up in the hospital.
So, okay, fine there.
I just don't know why he puthis diploma in there as well.
Pretty funny.
Maybe he's just a way to pickup girls and maybe it works.

(15:22):
There you go.
And then, of course, the convenientplot point that she turned out to be
Ben Gazzara's Ex girlfriend and man,Ben Gazzara, the fact that they have
this guy as this intimidating villainhere who can beat up anybody I guess
it's just cuz he's such a big shot.
He is so hilarious here as a villain Imean, he is actually really committed to
this performance I think he's giving agood performance, but it is just hilarious

(15:46):
that this is the casting you have for thistype of role He Becomes like an unkillable
murder machine at the end of the film,can't even be machine gunned down.
It's like the end of Scarface.
And man, he's committedthe whole way through.
So hey, my hat off to you, Ben Gazzara.
Also love his style of driving.
He's just like, hey, he not,he really owns the road, right?

(16:07):
He could just take up all fourlanes if he feels like it.
But what is his plan anyway?
Maybe it's possible that Gazara has moneylike as a legitimate businessman outside
of this core town, but it seems like hisMoney is mostly coming from blackmailing
these businesses for Protection moneyquote unquote if that's his plan, then

(16:30):
why is he destroying all these businesses?
He's he's destroying all the cars onthe car lot with his monster truck.
He's destroying the reputation, uh ofthis uh Bar where no one would want to go.
How's he going to collect his protectionmoney if he's putting everybody out
of business and everybody who has abusiness in this town is trying to
get the hell out of there now, bythe way, well, little preview of the

(16:53):
remake, if your intention is to driveeverybody out of town, okay, fine.
But that doesn't seem to be the case.
He just seems to want to be the bully.
And maybe once again, this islike a throwback to those 1950s.
Westerns where a lot of those plansdon't seem to really make sense either
when you get to the bottom of killingthe sheriff and intimidating the whole
entire town when at the same timeyou want to ingratiate yourself with

(17:15):
the whole in the town itself, right?
Theoretically, if this was a morerealistic movie, you could have
an example of a villain who doesprop up everybody and did bring
business into town and now he cancall all the shots and he could take
advantage of his power over everybody.
and intimidate them and take theirmoney and abuse them in any way,

(17:36):
play with them anyway he wants,because they are depending on him
for their livelihoods instead of thiscartoonish version of this character.
But hey, the movie I'mdescribing is not this movie.
This movie wants to be a cartoon.
So I'm just saying thatit's a preposterous plan.
That doesn't make any sense.
Uh, or at least if it does, uh, I didn'tget it, but I still do very much enjoy

(17:58):
Ben Gazzara's ridiculous performance.
And I say that in Intentionally,like over the top great fun, perfect
for this type of cartoonish villain.
And even though I have to honestlysay, I was bored for large sections
of this film, but I very muchenjoyed Ben Gazzara's performance.
I enjoyed the unintentionally comedicsex scenes and things like that.

(18:18):
Speaking of just unnecessarynudity, I like when the barmaid
shows up to bring Dalton breakfast.
when he's staying out at thatfarmhouse, and she catches his butt.
Oops!
She saw him in his butt.
Once again, no one wearsunderpants in this.
He just goes right into the jeans.
So don't worry.
Very funny that, you know, we just have tosneak in some additional nudity in here.
Another one is the, uh, onceagain, we've gone five minutes

(18:40):
without nudity in this film.
We got to throw some nudity inthere when they're having the,
uh, bouncer hooking up in the backroom and Dalton walks in on them.
And they don't even stop whatthey're doing, by the way.
But just have to throw in a littlenudity every five or 10 minutes.
Aside for some of these campy moments,I, in general, was kind of bored
with the film, to be honest, untilwe get to that crazy, crazy ending,

(19:01):
which we'll have to discuss here.
But just some of the otherreally memorable moments here.
Obviously, Dalton'shole, be nice, be nice.
Philosophy.
I also love his ideathat pain doesn't hurt.
So all of this like philosophy 101.
Very, very funny, but not as funnyas him doing Tai Chi in the morning
while he's being watched by thevillain who knows exactly where he is.

(19:23):
They could kill him at any time.
They blow up half the city to gethim by the end, but he's right there.
He's like 10 feet away from you.
Like it's not complicated.
By the way, that kind of tiesinto the second film as well.
Of course, the hilarioususe of the monster truck.
I do like when they're spyingon him with the monster truck,
like they're very subtle.
No one sees that monstertruck parked up the street.
And then of course, everything atthe end from the throat ripping

(19:48):
fight sequence, which is a, which isactually a really great fight sequence
capped off by his trying to tampdown his instinct to rip out throats.
Which, just a little aside on thattoo, I love the fact they bring that
up earlier on, and I honestly forgotthat that was a thing in this movie.
So when they first bring it up, itreally sounds like, you know, hey,

(20:09):
it's just like the legend of this guy.
Once again, it's like a Western, right?
The stranger rides into town, I alreadyshot two men with one bullet, right?
So there's like this kind of grandioselegend, maybe made up about the
gunslinger that comes into town.
This gunslinger tearsout throats, by chance.
But I remember as soon as they saidthat, I'm like, oh, isn't there something
with a throat ripping in this movie?
Isn't there something about that?

(20:30):
But oh man, what a great moment whenhe finally tears this guy's throat out.
A guy who threatens torape him, by the way.
Rape him like he rapesother guys in prison.
A completely unnecessary linethat's kind of shocking to hear.
I guess in tone withthe rest of this film.
And that triggers Dalton.
He's got been pushed too far.
Time to rip out a throat, cleanlyrip it out, too, by the way, doesn't

(20:50):
just grab it and choke him out.
He can pluck it out of his throat.
It's pretty amazing and hilarious.
But the best part of all of it,by the way, is his reaction to
like, Oh, no, I've done it again.
And of course, the filmcontinues to escalate from there.
Especially once hismentor has been murdered.
Another very dark turn in this film.
And that leads to the final showdownwhere he shows up at Ben Gazzara's house.

(21:12):
His fingers are tingling.
He really wants to tear out a throat.
He's able to control himself.
Not sure why.
Ben Gazzaro's the guy who is theonly one he can constrain himself
because he's on a murder spree atthis point, killing so many people.
The one, uh, silliest bad guy, theone we kind of empathize the most,
most with, does not get murdered.
He actually gets pinned under astuffed bear, which he shoots at.

(21:33):
Did he think that therewas a real bear there?
I'm not sure.
Once again, just this goofy tone shiftwhere you have a straight up horror
movie, in tone at the end of the film.
And we have this goofy bearscene thrown in there as well.
Just, I don't understand what tonethey're going for there at the end.
And of course it culminates in thatmassacring of the bad guy gets shot
25 times before he's finally done.

(21:54):
And then the cops show up for thefirst time in this entire movie.
Hey, look, there are cops in this town.
And they were waiting to pop in, butthey sat outside and waited patiently
until they heard all the gunshots.
And then they came and said,Hey, what's going on in here?
So just very, very funny.
And yeah, even though his friendsdied, even though he's torn out
some throats, it's all the Dukesof Hazzard here at the end of the

(22:16):
movie, high fives and back slapping.
It all turned out okay.
So what if your best friend had to die?
And that is, I guess, the charm ofthis film, which gives you whiplash
from moment to moment watching it.
Okay, here come the recommendations.
If you want some films from the1980s that are in this tone sometimes

(22:36):
intentionally, sometimes unintentionally,here are some other classics from
the 80s that you should check in.
By the way, your mileage mayvary on all of these films.
titles, because a lot of yourappreciation of this is going to be a,
your tolerance for being intentionallycheeky or unintentionally campy.
And that is an acquired taste.
So take everything with a grain of salt.

(22:58):
But I do think that if you doappreciate roadhouse, some of these
are going to appeal to you as well.
First of all, tango and cash.
There's going to be a lot of KurtRussell on this list, by the way,
I'm just a big Kurt Russell fan,especially in his eighties phase.
But he was always ready tomock his own on screen persona.
And I think what's great about Tango andCash, there's some good action sequences.

(23:20):
It's an absolutely preposterous plot.
But I think one of the things thatreally works in and makes Tango and
Cash stand up and should be kind ofreclaimed in the way that Roadhouse has
been, is this discrepancy between KurtRussell being so effortlessly charming
and Stallone struggling to be comedic.
He like really struggles to makethese jokes work and that awkward

(23:43):
Chemistry between them and they aregood together by the way, but that
adds this extra layer the two Celebritypersonas basically colliding together.
So once again, that's tango in cash.
Okay, let's keep talking about KurtRussell On the one hand, Escape from
New York, this John Carpenter classic,which I think is getting remade, or

(24:03):
they've been talking about remakingit for so many years, from I think
1981, a big hit when it came out.
And once again, effortlessly charming,Kurt Russell doing a Clint Eastwood
take, the man with no name, definitely aWestern, if you want to make that analogy.
And you can argue that most of Carpenter'sfilms are Western influenced, except
for maybe Halloween, obviously.

(24:25):
But that has some reallygritty fight sequences.
It is having fun with itself.
You definitely will Intentionally laughat things there, but it has this gritty
tone It has a real dark underbelly to itAnd I really want to call that one out
because as a bookend to that you havebig trouble in little China also from
John Carpenter with Kurt Russell yetagain this incredible comedy and martial

(24:49):
arts mashup, the type of mashup that wereally wouldn't see until years later.
This film was a huge flop whenit came out, very expensive.
The special effects, mostof them look pretty great in
retrospect, considering this is 86.
But the best thing about it is thatRussell, Kurt Russell is willing
to play the butt of the joke.

(25:09):
He's the guy who thinks he's the centerof the movie when this whole entire
mythology and all these side charactersand the people who actually know how to
fight and people know what's actuallygoing on are the characters around him
and the movie centered on him becausehe's supposed to be the hero because he's
the stereotypical, uh, white protagonist.
So he's supposed to be the hero, but he'sactually looks, he holds, he like stands

(25:30):
like Harrison Ford or, you know, basicallydoing a Harrison Ford impression here, but
he is the butt of the joke all the time.
He's the incompetent.
It's very funny that that.
They are even back in 1986 doing whatlike the last action hero tried to do
years later at a much, much higher budget.
Both of those films failed, bythe way, so I think they are more
contemporary than they were then.
People wanted their action straight up.

(25:51):
But do check that out.
That is funny.
It is making fun of the genre.
of the movie, but not campy.
I mean, I guess you can read itas camp actually nowadays, but
intentionally making those jokes.
And it's a lot of fun anddefinitely check that out.
Big Trouble in Little China from 1986.
And then if you want one more muchdarker, but very funny and very dark
and incredibly prescient sci fi actionfilm that mixes all these comedic

(26:17):
and violent tones together perfectlyand really intentionally, RoboCop,
which is basically a classic atthis point, a true classic, I think.
All right.
On the unintentionally funny side ofthings, you can check out the running
man Schwarzenegger doing a Stephen Kingadaptation, very, very loosely using
the original Stephen King story here.
There are some really cool ideas.
This idea of like a game showwhere people compete to the death.

(26:41):
Uh, for people's entertainment,really foresaw some of the types
of shenanigans you'd see in thefuture with reality TV shows.
So in some ways it's forward looking,but its tone is so campy and corny, even
at the time I remember seeing it andlike rolling my eyes at a lot of it,
and even more so now when you watch it.
So if you want to see Schwarzeneggerat his peak, still working out

(27:03):
his on screen persona, There'sa lot of charm to that as well.
So do check out The Running Man from 1987.
And one more from this era of the 80s.
Check out Bloodsport.
This is the film that cameout of nowhere and made Jean
Claude Van Damme into a star.
This movie is phenomenal.
It's loosely based on a true story,absolutely preposterous that this

(27:23):
would, that there's very, very littleof this that I believe is actually
based on that original true story.
So it is a complete low budget Bmovie in plot, in side characters.
in every aspect to it, whichends with, you know, culminates
with this fighting tournament.
But Jean Claude Van Damme is maybenever more compelling than he is

(27:45):
here, uh, this early in his career.
Oh, and one more.
I just thought of one more that Ireally highly recommend Chuck Norris.
This is not one of his favorite movies,but Chuck Norris has a absolutely crazy
film from 1982 called Silent Rage.
And this movie came out at theheight of the slasher movie craze.

(28:06):
And this movie is crazy.
What a mashup of stylistics here.
It opens with this mentallydisturbed man murdering his family.
It's very much a horror movie, by the way.
He gets sent back to the mental hospitalwhere he gets an experimental treatment
because he's been shot by the police.
He's almost dead, but he has likesuperhuman strength even as he's dying.

(28:26):
They inject him with some formulathat basically turns him into
Wolverine where he can regenerate.
to try to save his life.
He busts out, as you would expect,goes on a killing spree, and only Chuck
Norris, giving one of his flattest,most uninterested performances back
in 1982, early in his career, andhis plethora of roundhouses could

(28:48):
even try to take this guy down, butit has a, this movie has some great
fight sequences, has some absolutelyhilariously, unintentionally hilarious
moments here in the people's reactionsto this unstoppable killing machine.
Uh, it has a really dark tone, butit is a combination of a slasher
movie and a Kung Fu movie and amonster movie with a mad scientist.

(29:10):
And all of these things mixed together andalmost arbitrarily from scene to scene.
So it's, it's pretty artless.
I say that despite the fact that it'spretty charming in its own smutty
ambitions, maybe of all these films.
That I've recommended here the one that'sclosest to the accidental cult classic
and that's silent rage once again from1982 okay after 1989 maybe films when

(29:36):
I think about it Maybe films that weresomewhat influenced by this film trying
to embrace the slapstick Intentionallywinking Lee can't be with the high
violence action as well 1996 is from dusktill dawn written by Quentin Tarantino
And directed by Robert Rodriguez.

(29:58):
And featuring Tarantino in oneof his biggest roles on screen.
This film starts as a film noirfamily on the run with a touch
of serial killer mythology.
and then turns into a completelydifferent movie halfway through.
If you don't know, I mean, you probablyknow, but if you don't know, I'm not
going to spoil it here, but it reallyturns into a completely different movie.

(30:18):
This film doesn't actuallycompletely work for me, but I
think it is going for somethingwhich is pretty rare in the genre.
So if you want to see someone reallytrying to intentionally almost split
a movie in the middle and go withtwo completely different genres,
even, and tones, then do checkout From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
And from 1994, True Lies, speaking ofSchwarzenegger here, giving one of his

(30:42):
best performances, I think, and veryfunny to counterpoint this to The Running
Man, figured out his on screen persona.
He's working with James Cameron again.
But I remember when this movie cameout, I was thinking, he was coming
off of the flop in 1993, huge flop,of The Last Action Hero, a film
that also was trying to be an actionmocked the genre, kind of failed.

(31:09):
And he was going again into a spy spoof.
And who buys Schwarzeneggeras this undercover spy?
I remember seeing the trailer forthis movie and really worrying that
it was going to be a total disaster.
Instead, it turned out tobe the last really huge hit
that Schwarzenegger ever had.

(31:30):
And it really is, I think, a verygood blend of this comedy, and even
a romance, and action, of course,and a spoof, as well, of the genre.
So, I think it's pretty light on itsfeet for being so incredibly interesting.
Expensive and and huge but uh, it is Ithink I mean the action sequences at the
end of this movie are huge and and greatUh, so do check that out Cameron having

(31:54):
probably the most fun he's had in hiscareer as much fun as he can have as a
filmmaker Uh great action sequences alwaysof course from cameron And like I said,
maybe schwarzenegger's best performanceas a as an actor in his whole career.
And finally one more One of my favoritecult classics is a film called Lockout,
and this is from 2012, I believe it is.

(32:15):
Guy Pearce stars as basicallythe Kurt Russell character
from Escape from New York.
It's Escape from New York, butset in a jail in space, Sky Jail.
This movie has been called Sky Jail,by the way, many times, or Space Jail.
I mean, this movie's worth seeing becauseThe action sequences are so ridiculous.
It really knows exactlythe type of film it is.

(32:37):
It is completely over the top.
It is wall to wall special effects, andthey don't have the budget for them.
It's actually low budget.
So the special effects look pretty crazy.
All of this is a blend of intentionallycampy, And unintentionally can't be so
really what I'm looking for in thesetype of films, but what makes this
film work is that Guy Pearce in theKurt Russell role, basically is great.

(33:03):
Guy Pearce is an actor that I'vereally appreciated through memento
through his whole career, even in morecontemporary roles, not only those
iconic roles early in his career.
Like LA Confidential, for example,he continues to be a really, really
interesting actor, but he rarely willjust be like, I'm going to just lean
into my charisma 110 percent and that'sgoing to be the whole performance.

(33:25):
And he gets to do that here.
And if you are a Guy Pearce fan, youreally got to see this film just to
see him turn on the smarmy charisma,you know, really in a way that I'd
never seen him do in any other role.
And once again, that is Lockout from 2012.
All right.
Many, many recommendations for you there.
Hopefully we'll appreciate someof those in conjunction with

(33:47):
your appreciation of Roadhouse.
If you do revisit it, manypeople have been revisiting it.
I look at the streaming chartsjust out of curiosity when I
planned for these podcast episodes.
And, uh, the original Roadhouse isvery popular and easily streamable.
on Amazon prime.
So if you're watching the new one,you can also watch the old one.
I think it's also on HBO.
So very, very easy to watchthe original roadhouse.

(34:08):
And if you haven't seen it before,I hope that my commentary makes it
a little more fun for you to watch.
And if you have seen it before, I hopeyou enjoy the revisit and check out
some of those other recommendationsI gave here in the podcast.
Okay.
With that out of the way, let me getinto my conversation review with spoilers
of the new roadhouse to Jake Gyllenhaalfilm directed by Doug Liman, And we're

(34:30):
getting to that conversation right now,this new film from director Doug Lyman.
And I do want to have a little momenthere to touch on Doug Lyman's diverse
and really fascinating career fromswingers back in 1996, which kicked off
Vince Vaughn and John Favreau's careers.
And then to the kind of forgotten, butwhat a blast of a movie from 1999, yet

(34:55):
another classic movie from 1999 calledgo with an incredible soundtrack,
which launched so many careers.
And a few years after that, reallygetting into maybe his genre
of choice from this point on.
The Bourne Identity, a seminal actionmovie from this particular period of
time, especially with hand to hand combat.
And he was one of the creators of The O.

(35:16):
C., which is a cultural touchpointfor a whole generation of folks.
Mr.
Mrs.
Smith.
I don't think that's a great movie, bythe way, but it does have great action
sequences and really fun performances.
Even films that We'reconsidered bombs at the time.
It got terrible reviews.
For example jumper the ya Adaptationhonestly, I enjoy jumper because the

(35:36):
action sequences are so good and soclear Even in this sci fi realm being
able to track the logic of these verycomplicated and convoluted time jumping
or location spanning action sequences.
It's actually a lot of fun.
But then he really nailed that with oneof the absolute best action movies of
the past decade or so, or maybe ever,Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise film.

(36:02):
And they keep saying there'sgoing to be a sequel to that.
Hopefully there will be.
But then, interestingly, he was ableto scale things down, work with Tom
Cruise again with American Made.
This is in 2017.
I'm skipping some of his other work here.
But recently, he's kindof been wandering around.
He made a badly received, pandemic,low budget, shot in one location film
with Anne Hathaway called Lockdown.

(36:22):
He, I've never seen this, butI definitely want to see this.
He made a movie called Chaos Walking.
Which I'm just seeinghere on the filmography.
I have got to watch this film, by the way.
With Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley,among others, another very, I mean,
the cast is stacked beyond that.
Directed by Doug Liman, whorarely does bad action sequences,

(36:43):
and written by Charlie Kaufman.
So, Or at least one of the writersreally a fascinating ingredients that
film has gotten terrible reviews.
So I'd never watched it, butman, I got to watch it now.
So he continues to be busy, was a producerand director on the very successful
film, The Recruit or I should sayseries, Netflix series, The Recruit.

(37:03):
And all of this leads to Roadhouse.
All roads lead to Roadhousefor Doug Liman, at least,
and starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
As the film begins, wesee that we are in a.
grungy.
This is not a very welllit bar environment.
This is a very gritty and grungy locale.
Very different stylistic choice here.
And Post Malone of all peopleis kicking ass in the middle

(37:26):
of a bare knuckle boxing ring.
He's undefeated.
Not coincidentally, Post Malone is playingon the speakers, uh, in this very scene.
Some of his new country music.
He's kind of changed his style recently.
When a shadowy figure enters thering to do battle, and it turns out
it's Jake Gyllenhaal playing Dalton.
He is a disgraced MMA fighter.

(37:48):
He has, we discover over thecourse of the film, beaten one of
his friends to death in the ring.
We don't quite know why.
We never discover why.
But he was triggered.
He was pushed too far.
And when he gets pushed too far, He startsto killin Jessica Williams is also here
playing Frankie and she is watching what'shappening She needs a cooler or a bouncer
or a head breaker of some kind becauseher club out in the Florida Keys is being

(38:13):
intimidated and taken over by the localmobster kingpin who we never actually meet
we only hear him on the phone, but We domeet his son and we'll get to that later.
As soon as Post Malone discovers that thisis Jake Gyllenhaal under his hoodie, he's
like, Oh no, I'm not fighting that guy.
That guy kills people.
Apparently this is howDalton makes his money.

(38:34):
He collects the money when everybodyforfeits, when he walks into the ring.
It seems like he probablymakes decent money this way.
I guess you can't find many of thesefights though, so I guess it is a
limited, it's a windfall, but rare.
And this is when Frankie showsup to approach him, she knows who
he is, I need someone like you,he kind of turns down her offer.
And he says, no, I'm alittle busy right now.

(38:54):
By the way, he's been stabbed, forgotto mention that, he's been stabbed
in the parking lot by somebodywho's mad about losing money.
He knows how to take care of that.
Just a little tape will take care of it.
And it doesn't really matter anyway,because he's actually planning to
spend the rest of his night with hisbig winnings to, uh, park in front
of a moving train, but he does changehis mind on that and decides instead

(39:14):
to head down to the Florida Keys.
By the way, the tone ofthis early on very dark.
Um, I, this could be a dark film, bythe way, that could be an interesting
take on all of this, but opening witha near suicide, maybe a little too dark
for me, I think, considering where thisfilm is actually headed to eventually.
As soon as he shows up at thisFlorida Keys location, he meets an

(39:37):
adorable girl who runs a bookstorethat she inherited from her dead mom.
This is all incredibly cheesy, by theway, but I think very intentional.
And just like you have a Western, onceagain, let's do the Shane analogy.
There's a little boy, in this case, alittle girl, younger girl, who's looking
up to this guy to come and rescue her.
And he bonds to this younger character.
But not only do we have themetaphor, like I mentioned in my

(39:59):
commentary on The first Roadhousethat this is basically a Western.
We have to have someone in the film.
Tell us, Oh, this is just like a Western.
You should read some Westerns.
A little on the nose, but I thinkthis is knowing the film in some
ways is maybe a little too knowingabout what it's trying to do.
Uh, and I'll save kind of some ofthat commentary towards the end.
He shows up at this bar,quite a location for this bar.

(40:21):
I got to tell you, this is a huge,this is an incredible bar, by the way.
Definitely want to hang out at this bar.
Didn't really want to goto the other roadhouse.
This one, I think I did wantto hang out at this bar.
And similar to the first roadhouse,Dalton hangs out, gets a feel for
the place, sees what's going on.
He just kind of, Watcheshow everybody works.

(40:42):
He's figuring things out.
Being an MMA fighter seems way morerealistic than being a philosophy
professor as someone who canreally take care of business.
Oh, by the way, Gyllenhaal inincredible shape and the film.
ogles his body.
Like there are so many scenes ofjust his body lit in a way like
he's like a statue or something.

(41:03):
So he looks incredible physicallyand uh, the film knows it.
They like have multiple scenes wherethe purpose of the shot is just
to stare at his torso basically.
But very convincing in uh, being,I mean this type of shape you will
be in if you were an MMA fighter.
And a little commentary hereon Jessica Williams as Frankie.
I have liked Jessica Williamswhen she was on The Daily Show.

(41:25):
She might even still be on there.
I don't really watch The DailyShow for quite some time now.
I liked her on Shrinking.
I thought she was a lot of fun.
And later in the film here, in themid point of the film and beyond, I
think she does a really good job ofdelivering some punchlines and some jokes.
But man, they give her some really clunkyexposition And when she's just like
monologuing the history of the islandor her uncle or all the, it's rough.

(41:52):
She, she's struggling a little bitwith this, but I think anybody would.
This is like a very clunkyexposition laden dialogue they're
giving her, but I do appreciate shelands some very off the cuff, uh,
jokes that might even be ad libs.
And I think they land very well.
Good job with the comedy, but Man,A, let's not have so much monologuing
of exposition, and B, maybe notas adept at pulling that off.

(42:15):
But then again, who is?
And now this all leads up to myfavorite scene in the entire film.
Dalton takes the thugs that showup, this little motorcycle gang, and
he basically takes them all apart.
First, he checks in.
Do you have insurance?
Are you sure you're okay?
And he just starts by slapping themaround, and when they don't back down
right away, literally slapping themaround, by the way, he beats them all.

(42:36):
And this is very convincing.
It's very kinetic.
It's a lot of fun.
Like it is.
A very exciting, legitimately excitingfight sequence, and has the least
of this technique we'll see over thecourse of these, of the movie, where
we literally take that camera, goesinto fist cam, and is punching people.

(42:58):
And I didn't really like that.
That CGI technique, the less CGIthey have here in general, the
more I liked the fight sequences.
And I do ding the film significantlyfor its use of CGI, not only here in
the fights, but later on you see Dalton,someone tries to run him over, goes
to a CGI where he hops up in the air.
It's like it goes into likeMCU special effects territory.

(43:21):
And completely unnecessary more beatingup people in the parking lot and
with just stunt coordination done aspractically as possible and less CGI CGI
is just takes you out of the experience.
I think my opinion it's fine for livelie die repeat it's fine for edge of
tomorrow like I mentioned earlier.
Not great for a film that's about punchingpeople in the face or slapping them.

(43:44):
Out of this gang of thugs I have tocall out Arturo Castro, by the way, who
plays Moe, who's just like this likesweet puppy dog among these Killers
and he just gives a great performance.
He's like so utterly likable.
He gets all the funniest lines Andyeah, I mean he I think he's I think
he's gonna be a star this kid Thepunchline of this whole thing, of
course, is that he then has to takethese people to the hospital afterwards.

(44:08):
The people he just beat up, he'sgoing to take them to the hospital.
This is where he meets Ellie, played byDaniela Melchior, I think her name is.
And I have liked her in other things,but I have to say she has absolutely
No chemistry with Jake Gyllenhaaldefinitely a weakness here in the film
Not that you know going back to what Iwas saying in the previous commentary.

(44:30):
This film is pretty sexless I mean,I think they have sex when they go
out on their first date or seconddate when they go out to that
Sandbar, whatever you would call it.
I'm pretty sure they hooked up there,but we don't see any of it and Pretty
surprising with like the violence inthis film and some of the over the top
intentional goofiness that they don't atleast have a playful sex scene But I don't

(44:53):
even know if I'd want to see that becausethese actors really don't have a lot of
chemistry with each other Unfortunately,she gets to stitch up Dalton And this
is where he does get to recycle at leastone line of Swayze's dialogue from the
first film, that pain doesn't hurt.
But then he immediately flinches.
So maybe there's a littlewink here at the first film.
He's staying out on the boat, whichis coincidentally, just mentions,

(45:15):
Hey, you know, I was thinking aboutthis is where I'm going to stay.
I saw this place called the boat.
I'm going to hang out there.
Maybe someone will rent it to me.
And Jessica Williams, Frankie characteris just like, Oh, that's mine.
Hey, you could stay there.
Sure.
Okay.
Coincidentally, conveniently,whatever, but fine.
I do find this very funny, similarto the first Roadhouse film.
Once again, almost certainly a wink herethat just like in that film, they're

(45:37):
like, we need to find a place where we canmurder this character, where it looks like
an accident, where we will blow up theentire farm because to smoke him out when
not only do they know exactly where he is,it's a completely open and unsecured area.
Similar here.
I mean, someone actually doesat one point pop up inside of

(46:00):
the boat and try to shoot him.
Okay, fine.
Finally.
But even after that moment, he is thenumber one on everyone's kill list.
And he goes back and sleeps that nightwhile people are being kidnapped and
all this other crazy logistics arehappening to get him in a vulnerable
position when they could just sinkhis boat while he's sleeping in it.
Like it's, this is not that complicated.

(46:21):
This is approximately where Billy Magnusonshows up as the head honcho's inept
son, kind of privileged and idiotic.
And any movie that has BillyMagnuson in it is going to
improve by having him in it.
He's great in like every scene he's in.
He knows exactly what the film he's in.
He knows exactly how to play the part.
Watch Game Night if you haven't.

(46:42):
He plays a complete moron in that film.
Hilariously perfectly and then herehe gets to play this Entitled moron
who basically wants to get a straightrazor shave and watch the captain and
the person who's shaving him to somehowkeep the water from being bumpy while
they're, while he's trying to get shaved.

(47:04):
This is just such a perfectscene to explain the idiotic,
the idiocy of this character.
So we immediately hate him and weimmediately love that Magnussen
is having so much fun playing him.
And then what happens over the courseof the middle of the film is they
continuously try to get rid of Magnussen.
Dalton first, they try to intimidate him.
Then they try to murder him.

(47:25):
He is incredibly adept attaking care of business.
Gyllenhaal, I think isreally charming here.
I think your mileage may vary.
I've heard people have the reaction.
They can't stand him here.
I, you know, everyone, these littlesmirks, every time he took care of
himself, he really felt like he'salmost auditioning for, uh, Spider Man,

(47:45):
which, you know, was rumored that healmost had that role back in the day.
And it's that type of thingwhere he's making a quip each
time he beats somebody up.
So it really is like an Rrated Spider Man riff here.
Uh, and I like the, the way thatthe action is actually coordinated.
I like the fact that someone pulls agun on him and he goes, well, if your
finger's You can't pull the trigger.
So then he just breaks the guy's fingerand and the guy's surprised Oh, you broke

(48:08):
my finger after he pulled a gun on themAll of this is very entertaining to me
anyway And I think he is very charming inthis role And I think that really matters
whether you're going to buy in with thisat all if you don't buy in with him if you
Think he's smug and annoying if you don'tlike Jalen Hall Don't watch this movie.
It's like really built on the backof his charisma in, uh, to large part
why Swayze works in that first film.

(48:31):
I didn't call it out during thatcommentary, but Swayze is very charming
in that role, especially when he'sdoing his little philosophizing, which
is so corny, but he pulls it off.
And I think that is so importantto that first film working.
If Swayze was a not charismatic,inept in that first film.
I don't think it wouldbe a cult classic today.
People would just laughat it as a disaster.

(48:53):
And this film, which is much moreproficiently made, obviously by Lyman,
who's a much more proficient director ona much larger budget and with much more
elaborate and exciting action sequences.
Nonetheless, you reallyneed a, the charisma of, um,
Gyllenhaal to center the film.
And if that doesn't work for you,you're not going to like this film.
And then at about the midpoint of thefilm, this on the phone only Billy

(49:14):
Magnusson's father, the head honcho here,the real power, the real muscle here in
the, in the town, uh, who's in prisonand calling to check in on the ineptitude
he's hearing about the, about how hisson is handling this whole situation.
So he decides to bring a loosecannon into the circumstance.
Not sure, this is the Conor McGregorcharacter, basically, who plays Knox,

(49:38):
who has Knox tattooed on his abs threetimes, like, just so you know his name,
makes his entrance from, by jumpingout a window where he's been caught
with a wife, I think, by the husband.
So he's just walking through the middleof town, completely naked, looking for
someone to, uh, of the right size toborrow their wardrobe and also burns

(50:01):
the whole town down in the meantime.
Not sure why he did that.
Just draw even more attention to yourself.
And in the second half of the film,McGregor really becomes a bigger
and bigger part as this progresses.
And this is where I start to losethe film a little bit for me.
I was really enjoying thefilm up until that midpoint.
And also, along with that, rightaround the midpoint is when we

(50:22):
have that sexless sex scene withGyllenhaal and his love interest.
Once again, their chemistry's not verygood, so that doesn't really work.
And worse is McGregor's performance here,which I think is absolutely disastrous.
I've heard this bandied aboutalso on the internet chatter, but
people have said if it was purelya physical performance, a wordless

(50:44):
performance, Would it have been better?
I think that, yes, probablywould have been better.
I think if he was just physicallymenacing, he can fight, obviously.
He's very striking looking, obviously.
So maybe if it had been purelyphysical, it would have worked,
but giving him so much dialogueand this weird delivery he has.
And I mean, he's not a good actoris basically what it comes down to.

(51:06):
He definitely has charisma by the way.
So maybe there's something thereeventually, but they should have
done something here to correct thisperformance a little bit for me.
And once again, your mileage may varyif you love the Gyllenhaal performance.
And if you love this kind ofMcGregor performance, I think
you're going to love this movie.
For me, I liked half of this, didn'tlike the other half, more or less.

(51:28):
The film also gets a little boggeddown here towards the second half.
I mean, like kind of the paddedout to two hours, I'm sure.
We have a little mystery injected here.
What happened in the ring?
Why did Gyllenhaal lose his cool?
We never find out.
What's actually the plan?
Why are they trying to drive thesepeople away from their homes?
They're from their businesses,from this particular resort.
Oh, we also get this whole side plot.

(51:49):
It turns out the crooked cop who's workingwith the bad guys is actually So that's
the way that in the first film we had thistie back where Ben Gazzara had actually
dated or wanted to date had the thing for.
The Kelly Lynch character.
This is the way where you kind oftwist her into the plot, tangentially.
I think it works a little bit betterto have the dad there, but then

(52:10):
we're just adding this importantcharacter pretty late in the game.
So it's a little odd.
And at this point, they've taken hisgirl, they've burned the bookstore,
they've threatened all his friends,they've threatened his life.
And Dalton has been pushed too far.
Time to, well he doesn't tear outthroats, I gotta tell you, you gotta

(52:31):
have this guy tear out throats.
You, like, you did everything else, youknow, you were willing to do some of this
craziness, he's gotta tear out a throat.
He doesn't tear out a throat, he doesit the realistic way, he punches the
guy in the throat, the first bad guyin the throat that he encounters.
breaks some bone in histhroat, and that's it.
You can't breathe anymore.
You're gonna die.
And he is like full on psychopathhere, once again correlating

(52:53):
to the sequence in the originalfilm with the throat tearing out.
That is the sign that he has goneoff the deep end to the dark side.
He does let Moe survive.
Moe just, you know, gives him all thedetails that he knows about regarding
the abduction and the plot overall andthe location of all the main players.
And then he's allowed to leave.
And good thing, because like Isaid, Arturo Castro is so likable

(53:16):
in this character, in this role.
It's really a balancing act to even havea character like this, like a cuddly,
likable villain character, but it works.
And he's very funny inlike every scene he's in.
He just wanted to join a gang.
He just wanted to, he justwanted to ride a bike.
And it was, this is the only way he couldfind people who rode bikes with him.
He didn't want to get intoall this criminal activity.

(53:36):
You actually believe that.
And like I mentioned, Dalton not onlyhas, he must have a very dark background
because Not only has he killed this guyhe's preserved the body so he could frame
a cop like he's going serial killer modehere This would have been interesting
right to to stay with this tone to reallylet him get really dark really conniving

(53:57):
That would have been interesting somethingthat once again, I think would have
been interesting the first film as wellbut they have to Go back into slapstick
territory and they do the same thing here.
They decide to shift tones back into, uh,the silly and it begins almost right away.
He says, I'm going to frame this cop.
I'm going to knock youunconscious, give you a concussion.
You're going to have noshirt, short term memory.

(54:17):
The second that this guy comesto, he remembers everything that
happened, which is definitely a jokeand an entertaining one at that.
And of course the filmembracing its goofiness.
I like the fact that.
Ellie's father shows up goinglike, Oh, she's been abducted.
Come rescue her.
And then it's like, Itricked you to come here.
She hasn't been abducted.
Oh, wait a second.
She has been abducted.

(54:38):
It's, it's all just goofysilliness at this point.
And this last 20, 30 minutes ofthe film is very entertaining.
I think Dalton has taken offwith Ellie's ex boyfriend's
boat, filled it with explosives.
He also has a sack full of money.
And his plan is to blow up theboat adjacent to the yacht.
where he's come to meetwith all the baddies.

(55:01):
He's not really thoughtabout Ellie's rescue plan.
There is a very cool sequence whereshe's trying to smash the window.
He encounters her, the water floods in.
This is all very cool.
It's CGI, but it's well done.
I thought it was very coolthe way they did this.
Obviously spent some money here on thissequence here at the end of the film.
Honestly, the film may have workedbetter if they kind of kept it more
low key, made it feel less like agiant act and action spectacle, and

(55:25):
maybe a little something more grounded.
But nonetheless, these action sequenceshere at the end are a lot of fun.
And starting with that, uh, smashing ofthe window here at the bottom of the boat.
And then we have these boat races, we havethe McGregor character, indestructible
of course, as you would expect.
All this culminates with smashingthe boat into the roadhouse.
And then we have a protracted fightsequence between Dalton and Knox.

(55:50):
Knox kills Billy Magnuson's character.
Just to speak to the fact that he'sjust a wild card at this point.
He's not really strategic, so nota great plan from dad to send this
guy to fix things, quote unquote.
And Jake finally does him in bystabbing him many, many times, even
after it looked like he was defeated.

(56:11):
And then he rides off into the sunsetand leaves a giant sack of cash to that
sweet little girl with that bookstore.
And during the credits, we find outthat Knox is not dead and wanders off.
All right, so the things I reallyliked about this, Gyllenhaal's
charisma, I think really works here.
Very important to these type of films,like I touched on in my discussion
of those recommendations earlier.

(56:31):
McGregor did not work for me, but ifthat had worked, I think I would have
been more enthusiastic about this film.
The fight sequences.
I don't know why they're CGI inthose I I understand Lyman was going
for something he was experimenting.
I hear he shot things for with fourdifferent camera setups simultaneously,
and then he merged them together.
It's just distracting.
Uh, Like I mentioned before, the the theflying parking lot brawl where he just

(56:55):
beats everybody up and it feels like youare just over the shoulder right alongside
Gyllenhaal as he's just breaking headsand broken, breaking arms is a lot of fun.
And like, honestly, like my pulsequickened there in a way that probably
none of the other action sequences did.
And it's just a total blast.
And more of that, I think would have beenbetter for the film for it to work for me.

(57:18):
The, Shifts in tone fromcomedic back and forth.
I know it's an homage to the original filmBut I don't think they pulled it off here
Even though it's intentional and they'rewinking at the original film still seems
like not really necessary to be honestand not that effective Distracting.
Once again.
It meaninglessly, they neededa better romance if you're

(57:39):
going to include a romance.
At least make it work.
I think on the screen, although a chaseromance is once again kind of in line
with these kind of Westerns, but hey,you can update some of this stuff.
And the performances are uneven,although once again, considering
the source material, maybethat's intentional as well.
Billy Magnuson's great as thevillain, a buffoon of a villain,

(57:59):
but still very entertaining.
But my biggest question for this, andit circles back even to the Ghostbuster
films, wouldn't this be better ifthis was a film that reminded you of
Roadhouse or in the vein of Roadhouserather than saying, this is Roadhouse.
It seems like we can't do that.
Make anything anymore unless it's basedon something else and then people complain

(58:24):
because they expected the other thing orthey expected a specific thing because
of the setting of expectations which justcomes from the branding right like if the
Ghostbusters was Not the Ghostbusters.
It was just another ghost comedy and thenoh, maybe the Ghostbusters show up at
some point So it becomes like a sidewayssequel or in the universe of or something

(58:48):
like that You can't really do that withRoadhouse because I mean, there's no like
extended universe for the Roadhouse Ihope they never do anything like that.
But then why even callthis thing Roadhouse?
Unfortunately, I know why thisthing is called Roadhouse.
It's because It's the numberone film streaming right now.
People are watching itbecause it's called Roadhouse.
So in the end, that's thedecision that's being made.

(59:08):
So maybe it is there.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it is the right thing to dobecause people will watch it now.
People will complain.
It's not like the original,but people will watch it.
And then 10 years from now, They'llbe like, wow, you know, that film
had some good action sequences.
I enjoyed that film.
It'll be a way to get people to watchthings, even if they complain at first.
Maybe this makes sense in some way,but I think it would be more well

(59:30):
received if it was just considered afilm like roadhouse, neo westerns about
a shadowy figure that comes into townand rescues the town from the bad guy.
That's been a formula forever.
This is a genre of itself.
It doesn't necessarily need to be astraight remake, but like I said, this is
probably what will make people watch it.

(59:50):
All right.
So that is the roadhouse rundown.
Oh, the rundown, by the way, with therock, there's a really fun action comedy.
Check, that one out too.
So throw that out to thelist of recommendations.
All right.
Until next time, have a happy Easterweekend and I'll talk to you soon.