It was a glorious opening night at the 2024 edition of South By Southwest Film & TV for the World Premiere of Doug Liman’s ROAD HOUSE, a big and grand. The cast and crew were all here in attendance. Doug Liman was present, sitting about ten rows behind my aisle seat donning a cowboy hat. The movie was lovingly introduced by film lead Claudette Godfrey, here in her second year at the festival.
About: Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Road House as Dalton, ex-UFC fighter-turned-bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse, owned by Frankie (Jessica Williams). Facing threats from a criminal gang led by Brandt (Billy Magnussen), Dalton’s violent past emerges. When he is confronted by Knox (Conor McGregor), a lethal gun-for-hire, the escalating brawls and bloodshed become more dangerous than his days in the Octagon.
Jason’s Reaction: I will get this right out of the gate. ROAD HOUSE needs to be seen in a cinema. Big time. There is just no way around the incredible cinematography, fight scenes, humour and overall tone of Doug Liman’s latest movie which was so enjoyable from beginning to end. To my absolute delight, this ROAD HOUSE is a dramatic departure from the original, Patrick Swayze movie from 1989 with a much different setting, background and use of its character of Dalton, here played in a fearless performance by Jake Gyllenhaal. He is also up against Connor MacGregor, whose performance as the heavy is just strong enough to make a difference but also not stand out too much. In fact, the entire cast, from Billy Magnussen as an accomplice and a nice mixture of character actors and UFC fighters make for such a entertaining journey, mixed with Doug Liman’s flair for action and even some biting comedy at the same time. Now if this could have just had a wide release in cinemas I would have loved to see it again with another packed audience, but at least Amazon Prime subscribers will get to see it pretty quickly. If they could only have seen it with 1200 cheering moviegoers tonight at the Paramount, however…..
My huge personal thanks to the great team at Amazon/MGM Studios PR for the hospitality and invite to the premiere! ROAD HOUSE will begin streaming on Amazon Prime on March 21st.