A remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze starrer Road House, the 2024 version stars Jake Gyllenhaal as James Dalton. Directed by Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow), the Prime Video original is a whole lot of fun. Featuring rib-cracking violence shot with excellent camera work, the new version manages to stand on its own despite a lukewarm second act.
The unhinged, campy nature of the film keeps it engaging as Gyllenhaal devours the screen, literally making you want to glue your eyes to your small screen. While this would have been an interesting big-screen experience in its current release version, the film keeps you hooked through and through. In spite of a few underwritten characters, Road House is worth seeing.
In the following article, we will take a closer look at everything that happens in Road House (2024) along with what the ending means.
Spoiler Alert
Road House (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The movie opens at a betting fight where Frankie (Jessica Williams) is present to recruit a bouncer for her beach bar named Road House. While she is initially interested in Carter (Post Malone), when Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) shows up and makes everyone leave the arena without a fight, she changes her mind. She goes up to him and tells him that she is willing to pay him a good amount of money along with living quarters if he takes up the job.
Dalton refuses, and we learn that he is a person battling his deep-rooted demons despite putting up a happy and brave face. When he almost dies by parking his car in the middle of a rail track, he has a sort of epiphany and decides that sleeping in his car is not getting him anywhere.
Next, we see him arriving in Glass Key, Florida – the place where Frankie’s Road House looks out to the sea. He also befriends a little girl named Charlie (Hannah Love Lanier) who runs a bookstore along with her father. Frankie is relieved to have a bouncer for her bar after the previous few quit.
On his first day itself, Dalton sends Dell (JD Pardo) and his entourage to the nearest hospital after they created a ruckus at the bar. Strangely, Dalton drives all of them to the hospital to fix them up and ends up meeting Ellie (Daniela Melchior) – the local doctor. She is nice to him as she fixes his old stab wound.
Who is Ben Brandt?
We soon learn that Dell and his men have been creating issues at the club, not just because they are a-holes but because there is a bigger issue in the works. Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen), whose criminal father owns half of Glass Key strip by the sea, is after acquiring the Road House because it would be a good central point for his drug trade and other shady businesses.
Ben is pissed to hear that there is a new problem in between him and the Road House, and before his father, who still somehow operates out of prison, declares him incumbent, he wishes for an immediate fix. We also learn that Ben wants to make a resort in Glass Key, and without Frankie’s club, his plans will come to a standstill.
Ben and his men try their best to remove Dalton out of the picture and get on with what they have been trying to do, but they soon realize that he is like a concrete wall that cannot be brought down. Since Ben is unable to find a fix, his father decides to step in and puts in a call for Knox (Connor McGregor) – an unhinged and mad man who seems to be the only real opponent against Dalton.
Road House (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
What had happened in Dalton’s past?
Throughout the film, we see Dalton having nightmares of a fight, but these dreams never allow us to understand what really went down. In his old life, Dalton was a champion MMA fighter and in one of his fights, he ended up killing his opponent who was also his best friend just because something snapped in him. Ever since, Dalton has been trying to curb his anger by keeping things light, which is why we see him easing and joking around even when fighting with people.
His past comes out when Ellie, who seems to have a thing for him, brings it up on their unplanned ‘first date’. On returning from his ‘said date’, Dalton is rounded off by the local sheriff named ‘Big Dick’ (Joaquiam de Almeida) who threatens him. He also learns that Big Dick wants to either kill him or frame him for a crime, but Ellie saves him in the nick of time. She later tells him that Big Dick is her father who has been bending the law for the Brandts for a long time.
Upon learning the twisted nature of the ordeal in Glass Key, Dalton decides to leave only to stay because the mad Knox, who he earlier fought with was in the equation now and one of Ben’s men burnt Charlie’s bookstore just to spite him. Dalton, who has been keeping his anger in check till now, loses his cool because he was really fond of Charlie.
While Dalton is planning his next move, which involves money that he took away from Ben, Big Dick comes up to him and tells him that Ben has kidnapped Ellie and wants him to return his money. Dalton knows that the sheriff is deceiving him but still decides to go face-to-face with Ben on his yacht.
At the yacht, things take an ugly turn when Dalton blows up his temporary ride. Ben is enraged and decides to take his smaller boat to destroy Road House from the sea. A fight that starts between Ben, Dalton, and Knox (who shows up out of nowhere) starts off in the sea and leads to the Road house. In the madness Knox kills Ben and later fights Dalton. The fist-fight turns into an ugly stabbing, and the ending of Road House (2024) finds Dalton finding all his strength and killing Knox after much deliberation.
Big Dick shows up on the scene and decides to let Dalton slide. Since all that has been haunting the Road House is now down with, Frankie and her staff decide to clean up and start all over again. We briefly see Dalton leaving Glass Key for good but only before leaving the money for Charlie and her father who would need it to bring their burnt bookstore back to life.
Is there a mid-credit scene in Road House (2024)?
Yes, after the credit rolls on Dalton and his tale in the Road House, a brief sequence shows a rampaging Knox coming out of the hospital alive. Does this mean there would be a sequel in the form of Road House 2? I would like to think that the end credit was just a cheeky campy way for Doug Liman to end things, but knowing that Amazon is ever so eager to make franchises out of thin air, we can’t be too sure about that possibility.
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