If any streaming movie can be a “hit,” it looks like Road House is a hit.
The 2024 update of the ’80s classic debuted recently on Amazon’s Prime Video. According to Amazon, the movie has already notched “50 million viewers” since its premiere on streaming on March 21.
The new film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Dalton, a former MMA fighter turned bouncer at a seedy bar down in the Florida Keys. As in the original movie, the bar (which is actually called “The Road House” in this version) is actually a small part of a shady businessman’s attempt to control the local economy, and Dalton becomes the only person standing in his way.
READ MORE: Read Our Full Road House Review
The fact that Road House is doing well on streaming is somewhat ironic, given how much its director, Doug Liman, was upset about it premiering there. He was so miffed that his film was bypassing theaters entirely that he threatened to boycott its premiere at the South By Southwest Film Festival. (Liman later changed his mind and attended the premiere anyway.)
While I have no doubt crowds in multiplexes would have eaten Road House up, the movie also works just fine at home. As I wrote in my review…
Road House became a cult classic because it was fun to watch on cable. None of it was hard to understand — or at least none of it made any less sense — if you flipped to it halfway through. No matter where you started or stopped watching it, you were guaranteed to see some thrills, some violence, some sex appeal, and probably a couple laughs, intentional or otherwise. While the cable TV movie ecosystem seems to be going extinct, the new Road House would have thrived in it as well. This is the kind of consistently entertaining movie you could happily watch 100 times without ever actively intending to watch it twice. By its conclusion, it accumulates the atmosphere of a great bar; a place you go less to get drunk than to soak in the vibes of the music and the regulars.
You can watch Road House right now on Amazon’s Prime Video. The original Road House starring Patrick Swayze is also streaming on Prime Video now as well.
The Craziest Moments in Road House
These are the craziest parts of the Patrick Swayze masterpiece Road House. (These are not the only crazy parts. But these are the craziest crazy parts.)