This year’s SXSW was the stage for the premiere of Amazon MGM’s Road House, a remake of the legendary all-out brawl of a camp classic starring the late icon Patrick Swayze. Austin, Texas is the perfect venue for a premiere with this kind of “don’t fuck with me” energy that radiates from the movie about a former UFC fighter-turned-mega bouncer for a bar conveniently called “The Road House” in the Florida Keys.
Jake Gyllenhaal puts his charismatic stamp on the role of Dalton, originated by Swayze. This time, Dalton is down on his luck and shaking off his problematic past as a renowned UFC fighter. He is immediately hired by Frankie (Jessica Williams), the owner of the aforementioned bar, which is wildly known for having hyper-masculine explosions of break-a-beer-bottle-on-your-head brawls amongst its patrons. More often than not, motorcycle baddies led by Dell (Mayans M.C.’s JD Pardo) come in and rough things up — and shout out to Arturo Castro, who played one of the most polite gang members. They report to crime boss Brandt (Billy Magnussen), who is a certified douchebag and the kind of guy that can’t wait to talk to you about Walter Isaacson’s biography about Elon Musk.
The movie has that classic “wealthy man wants to buy a local bar to plant corporate monstrosities” with Brandt wanting to buy out Frankie’s bar. One thing leads to another and Dalton falls into the crosshairs of Brandt and is also pursued by Knox, a beast who is a psychopathic nudist and is hellbent on bulldozing anyone in his way to break Dalton in half.
Road House is dumb fun, wildly aggressive, and includes a new brand of fight-action fuckery that appropriately started to spill over into the SXSW audience in the Paramount Theater. No one threw hands or broke any bones, but the fuckery was in full effect that night.
The Paramount Theater has orchestra and balcony seating. For the premiere, I sat in the very last row near the exit behind two friends. About four rows in front of us there was a middle-aged man in a suit with his shirt unbuttoned and a bolo tie dangling on his bare chest. I leaned over and said to my friends, “Oh, he looks important.” I was half-joking.
A view from my seat at the premiere of ‘Road House’ at SXSW
Minutes later, we saw that he, along with a group of people started to have what seemed like a polite argument that was desperate to turn into a moment.
It wasn’t long until people seated in the surrounding areas started to yell at the bare-chested daddy. Turns out he was trying to save nearly two rows of seats 5 minutes before the movie was about to start. He claimed that he was saving the seats for the 80-year-old composer for the movie, which received lots of eye rolls and scoffs.
It seemed like all the dust settled when the surrounding area of people started to reconfigure seating (some more unwilling than others) while the bare-chested man got the seats he needed.
All seems good, right?
It wasn’t.
One of the guys involved in the “Great Road House SXSW Premiere Seating Incident” ended up sitting in front of me next to my friend. From the jump, the person, let’s call him Bobby, would not stop texting and using his phone to browse Instagram. My friend politely asked Bobby to turn it off. Bobby started to argue, “It’s for work!” He also suggested that they switch seats because he needed to leave his seat a lot — and that was not going to happen.
True to his word, Bobby kept going in and out of the theater. He also kept leaving his seat to buy and deliver drinks to someone a couple of rows in front of us (we later learned it was his boss). He also continued to use his phone throughout the screening until the wonderful SXSW staff tapped him on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow them outside.
Finally, I could watch the movie in peace.
Just kidding. Bobby came back shining his phone light on the ground asking if he left his charger. By this time, he was drunk. He sat down and then started to take pictures and film the movie screen on his phone until someone from SXSW swooped in and motioned for him to leave.
This was when Bobby left my life forever.
I thought that this was an isolated incident, but apparently, friends who were sitting in the balcony saw people taking pictures of the movie screen and even filming and posting to Instagram — during the movie. I’ve never witnessed this before — especially at a film festival. My guess is that people who aren’t frequent film festival goers do not know any better but also, post-pandemic life has amplified the fact that not everyone in this world has home training.
This chaotic screening experience of Road House feels right considering the history of this movie. Before its premiere, Variety gave a good rundown of the Road House reboot.
The movie was set during pre-acquisition MGM which changed its journey. After MGM bosses Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy left for Warner Bros. in July 2022, Amazon Studios boss Jennifer Salke greenlit it. As Variety stated, “Sources familiar with the negotiations say the filmmakers and Gyllenhaal were given a choice: Make the film for $60 million and get a theatrical release or take $85 million and go streaming only. They opted for the latter.”
Despite this, director Doug Liman and Joel Silver, who also produced the 1989 version, pushed for a theatrical which didn’t seem likely. While all this was happening, McGregor had the weight of multiple sexual assault and violence against women allegations on him (he did not face criminal charges).
Silver was given the boot for verbal abuse and then in January of this year, Liman wrote an open letter on Deadline saying, “Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas” and then he said he would not be attending the SXSW premiere but later changed his tune. He sat in the audience during the premiere but did not go on stage to present the film with Gyllenhaal.
As I sat in the audience with Mr. Liman somewhere amidst the selfie, Instagram-posting madness, we came to one of the most climactic bar brawls in the movie. In the scene, the band playing on stage in the bar, was led by — you guessed it — bare-chested daddy and the 80-year-old composer who were pioneers in the “Great Road House SXSW Premiere Seating Incident”.
With its behind-the-scenes drama, the theatrical release debate, a director refusing to attend the premiere and a lot of pushback from many different directions, its no wonder that the Road House premiere audience was just as chaotic — just like the movie.
