The Országúti disco, which turns 35 this year, was one of the last hits of the happy eighties. The film, in which the late Patrick Swayze, the intellectual bouncer, the disco samurai, the Yojimbo of the redneck village, beats up drunken bad guys, and then hooks up with the local kingpin and his scumbag ninja squad, did not turn out to be a breakout success at all in its time. , and the critics did not praise it either. However, over the years it has earned cult status and has become the absolute top cinema of the neck-and-neck doormen of the night in Pest, thanks to which the slightly drunk, disruptive mosquito punks have already been kicked out of the nightclubs with greater elan. As the good old Hollywood saying goes, every profession has its own film, and with Orszáútí disco, the Americans have proven time and time again that even for such a fundamentally not very diverse work, they can put on an all-night cinema – if not a good one, but fun for sure.
Because don’t get me wrong, whether it’s retro or not, Orságúti disco is not a good movie at all – but, like many other classics, it was beautified by the fogged, biased lens of nostalgia. Also, there really aren’t any movies like this being made these days. The unsurpassed milieu of the 1980s is already there, isn’t it (in an age in which almost every entertainment industry product looks back to the past, this in itself is a huge weapon), the chic clothes, the even chicer hairstyles, the pumpkin atmosphere – and then the now museum we haven’t even talked about the American way of life, the neon-lit, soot-smelling, smoky pubs full of ugly faces and the testosterone-fueled wrestling matches. The main character, who modifies the almighty jerks with spin kicks, is also worth a few lines: Patrick Swayze’s characters both embodied the hero type of the decade and were spectacularly different from Stallone’s and Schwarzenegger’s twisted one-man commandos.
Although James Dalton did not carry mammoth pines on his shoulders and did not butcher the enemies of Reagan’s foreign policy, he nevertheless served as a kind of guide for male viewers with his firm stance and macho demeanor. As a positive example, he gave an idea of how and how they should behave, whether it is about protecting the fallen, helping the elderly, or dealing with women (the latter is important only because, unlike the muscle men of the eighties, where the weaker are not only humorous functioned as a sidekick or maximum sexual aid, Swayze, as the fake hero in love, already treated his girlfriend as an equal partner). Today, with one or two rare exceptions, this particular male ideal has almost completely disappeared, or at least is undergoing a strong transformation.
The representatives of the stronger sex are often carved into unviable brats or male chauvinist, sexist beasts by Hollywood, and it is also common to look for the smallest flaws of the departed heroes even retrospectively, always pointing out how “destructive” and “primitive” these characters were. even in their own age. I mentioned all this because the remake of Orszáútí disco has arrived (admittedly, only for streaming), and in light of the above and the fact that we are writing 2024, it is at least as surprising as it is obvious. It goes without saying that the dream factory, lacking original ideas, constantly picks up its old classics and tries to achieve success with them again – but at the same time, it’s also strange in today’s climate, since there are few more macho films than Országúti disco.
In any case, the testosterone-filled remake doesn’t hold back, what’s more, it’s a completely macho work, just like the original. The new version only takes the basics and one or two small things from the 1989 film. The punchline remains the same, the protagonist, who is an ex-UFC champion instead of an intellectual with a degree in philosophy, is tasked with shaking the pants of a run-down bar (which is in Florida this time). The farm life was thrown away, the reflection on the changes in the male role is manifested in the friendship between Dalton and a young bookseller, as well as in Dalton’s direct, relaxed style (our man, if necessary, even takes abandoned bad boys to the hospital), although only superficially, but that’s okay , that they took the figure as a joke. However, the western features typical of the original are accentuated all the more, the conflict of the story is also related to the genre: the invasion, i.e. their own land, which intruders want to take possession of, so the “natives” ask a hero from outside to help protect their way of life .
So the 2024 Orszáútí disco is a fun little film that doesn’t even want to adapt to today’s trends. The action scenes are hard, every punch and every kick has weight, Jake Gyllenhaal shakes off the menacing, but somehow deeply gentle and lovable bouncer (even if the role did not require much acting quality), Conor McGregor plays himself and a parody of himself at the same time. Overall, the atmosphere, the setting, the wrestling, en bloc, everything recalls the times when people went to the video store for a new Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. When we simply believed that these works are the best in the world, the Belgian asparagus king is the world’s greatest actor.
It’s an old-fashioned 80s and 90s nostalgic action movie, with all its faults – and unfortunately, the problems start somewhere here. The real problem with it is not that the stakes are weightless and the basic conflict itself is bland, nor is it that it is 15-20 minutes longer than it should be – precisely because those films at that time also largely struggled with these negatives. And really: if we look at the quality, then an old Van Damme or an old Seagal movie, or even the original Orszáutú disco was not much better than this, but the big difference is that they are children of a completely different world, perception and arrangement. The charm, the feeling, the longing for the past, and the deceptive glasses of retro made these works hits that continue to this day.
On the other hand, the remake of the Országúti disco doesn’t have these attributes at all: in 2024, it doesn’t really excite the audience anymore if two tall men beat each other in the middle of a pub (however, it’s also true that the film at least doesn’t want to redeem the world, he doesn’t want to go big at all costs), and the makers are not trying to gain the right to exist in this film in the present age. It’s a joke that if it was shown 30 years ago, maybe today we would see it as a cult piece, but then it’s just a simple Sunday afternoon action story, which you start out of boredom, or because you’ve already seen everything and there’s nothing better. The new Országútí disco is perfect for this.
Gamekapocs rating: 6.5
Original title: Road House
Director: Doug Liman
Producer: Joel Silver
Screenplay: Anthony Bagarozzi, Charles Mondry
Story: Anthony Bagarozzi, Charley Mondry, David Lee Henry
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams, Joaquim de Almeida, Conor McGregor
Music: Christophe Beck
Cinematographer: Henry Braham
Editor: Doc Crotzer
Producer: Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Pictures, Silver Pictures
Publisher: Amazon MGM Studios
Playing time: 121 minutes
Original premiere: March 21, 2024.
Domestic premiere: March 21, 2024.
