home alone plugged in movie review

Reviewed by: Brett Willis CONTRIBUTOR

S omething about this film struck a chord with our latchkey-kid society, in a way that went even beyond its $286 Million domestic box office. For a long time after its release, newscasters (at least in my city) would report real-life “home alone” incidents in a way that tied them to the film, even taking a breath and then pronouncing “homealone” as though it were one word (kind of like “helpmeet”).

Through a far-out but theoretically possible combination of events, 8-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is left behind when his large family and his cousins go on a Christmas vacation to France. Once the mistake is discovered, Kevin’s mother desperately tries to get back to him as soon as possible. In the meantime, Kevin imagines that his family has disappeared because he, in anger, had said he wanted them to disappear. He has a blast for awhile, getting into things he shouldn’t and pigging out on anything he wants. But that soon gets old, and he wants his family back. Meanwhile, he has to contend with Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), a pair of burglars who call themselves the “Wet Bandits” but could be better titled the “Two Stooges.” Harry and Marv are hitting every house in this rich Chicago neighborhood while the families are on vacation, but they especially target Kevin’s house. One major draw of the film is the way Kevin continually outwits the burglars. (In real life, he could have just called the police right away; but what fun would that have been? Maybe he was afraid of being arrested himself for wishing his family out of existence.) Another selling point is the subplot in which Kevin befriends and connects with a lonely old man in the neighborhood and they end up helping each other.

Content Warnings

The opening scenes, of the combined families getting ready for the trip, involve moderate profanity and a lot of jealousy and fighting, capped off by Kevin being banished to an attic bedroom. The left-behind Kevin goes through his brother’s private stuff, including girlie magazines. Kevin scares off a pizza delivery boy with fake gunfire, just for fun (later, he uses the same trick on the burglars). The final battle between Kevin and the burglars involves a large amount of slapstick violence, much of which would be crippling or lethal if it were real. The “feel” of the film is that the violence shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but children below a certain age won’t realize that and may be frightened and/or engage in imitative behavior.

Overall, the film is fun for any audience old enough to know that it’s only a fantasy.

Followed by: “ Home Alone 2 : Lost in New York” (1992) [same characters, similar plot, more violence] and “ Home Alone 3 ” (1997) [new characters]

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Movie Review: Home Sweet Home Alone

If you’ve been thinking it’s time for a "Home Alone" reboot, Hollywood’s one step ahead. And this relaunch of the now-familiar story of a boy left behind to ward off home invaders is both nicer and meaner than the original. Read the Plugged In review: https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/home-sweet-home-alone-2021/ If you've listened to any of our podcasts, please give us your feedback: https://focusonthefamily.com/podcastsurvey/

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"Home Alone" is a splendid movie title because it evokes all sorts of scary nostalgia. Being left home alone, when you were a kid, meant hearing strange noises and being afraid to look in the basement - but it also meant doing all the things that grownups would tell you to stop doing, if they were there. Things like staying up to watch Johnny Carson, eating all the ice cream, and sleeping in your parents' bed.

"Home Alone" is about an 8-year-old hero who does all of those things, but unfortunately he also single-handedly stymies two house burglars by booby-trapping the house. And they're the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people.

The movie's screenplay is by John Hughes , who sometimes shows a genius for remembering what it was like to be young. His best movies, such as " Sixteen Candles ," " The Breakfast Club ," " Ferris Bueller's Day Off " and " Planes, Trains and Automobiles ," find a way to be funny while still staying somewhere within the boundaries of remote plausibility. This time, he strays so far from his premise that the movie suffers.

If "Home Alone" had limited itself to the things that might possibly happen to a forgotten 8-year-old, I think I would have liked it more. What I didn't enjoy was the subplot involving the burglars ( Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern ), who are immediately spotted by little Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), and made the targets of his cleverness.

The movie opens in the Chicago suburbs with a houseful of people on the eve of a big family Christmas vacation in Paris. There are relatives and kids everywhere, and when the family oversleeps and has to race to the airport, Kevin is somehow overlooked in the shuffle. When he wakes up later that morning, the house is empty. So he makes the best of it.

A real kid would probably be more frightened than this movie character, and would probably cry. He might also try calling someone, or asking a neighbor for help. But in the contrived world of this movie, the only neighbor is an old coot who is rumored to be the Snow Shovel Murderer, and the phone doesn't work. When Kevin's parents discover they've forgotten him, they find it impossible to get anyone to follow through on their panicked calls - if anyone did so, the movie would be over.

The plot is so implausible that it makes it hard for us to really care about the plight of the kid. What works in the other direction, however, and almost carries the day, is the gifted performance by young Macaulay Culkin, as Kevin. Culkin is the little boy who co-starred with John Candy in " Uncle Buck ," and here he has to carry almost the whole movie. He has lots of challenging acting scenes, and he's up to them. I'm sure he got lots of help from director Chris Columbus , but he's got the stuff to begin with. He's such a confident and gifted little actor that I'd like to see him in a story I could care more about.

"Home Alone" isn't that story. When the burglars invade Kevin's home, they find themselves running a gamut of booby traps so elaborate they could have been concocted by Rube Goldberg - or by the berserk father in " Last House on the Left ." Because all plausibility is gone, we sit back, detached, to watch stunt men and special effects guys take over a movie that promised to be the kind of story audiences could identify with.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Home Alone (1990)

103 minutes

MacAulay Culkin as Kevin

Joe Pesci as Harry

Daniel Stern as Marv

John Heard as Peter

Roberts Blossom as Marley

Catherine O'Hara as Kate

John Candy as Gus Polinski

• John Williams

Photographed by

• Julio Macat

Directed by

• Chris Columbus
• Raja Gosnell

Written and Produced by

• John Hughes

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Home Alone 's uneven but frequently funny premise, stretched unreasonably thin, is buoyed by Macaulay Culkin's cute performance and strong supporting stars.

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Disney+’s Home Sweet Home Alone Review: Remake Trappings Hinder This Movie's Holiday Charm

The home alone tradition continues..

Home Alone : it’s one of those movies that has become a tradition in many households during the holiday season. The 1990 film written by John Hughes is incredibly rewatchable because it’s so quotable, and filled with heart and laughs. With that in mind, any reboot has massive shoes to fill, with the challenge kept evergreen by audiences revisiting it over and over, year after year. One could argue the burden is so great that it’s unfair. That being said, with Dan Mazer's Home Sweet Home Alone , Disney+ is sincerely tries its best to deliver a worthy installment to the franchise. 

Home Sweet Home Alone marks the fourth Home Alone movie to be made without Macaulay Culkin , Joe Pesci , Daniel Stern and director Chris Columbus . This time, Borat writer Dan Mazer has helmed the project from a script by Saturday Night Live writers Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell. It stars Jojo Rabbit ’s breakout kid, Archie Yates, as Max Mercer, who, you guessed it, gets left home alone during the holiday season. The clear lack of originality in the new film earns it some coal in its stocking as it rehashes most of the contents of the original, but there’s a number of redeeming qualities as well that make it watchable anyway. 

In a lot of ways, Home Sweet Home Alone is exactly what you’d expect from a Home Alone reboot. 

I don’t think anyone is expecting their mind to be blown when they watch a Home Alone sequel. Each of these movies follow a specific gimmick, and this Disney+ release continues the tradition. There’s an adorable kid defending his house, a couple of goons to defend it from, along with a cute message about the holiday season to warm one up. In that sense, Home Sweet Home Alone checks all the boxes and compared to other movies of its franchise that have come post-Kevin McCallister, there’s some love and care wrapped into it. But, do we really want the same gift regifted to us over and over? It seems like a troubling trend for Disney once again. More wasted energy is being put forth in order to appeal to brand recognition or thanks to pure laziness from its executives. 

Overall, Home Sweet Home Alone hits just about every beat from the original Home Alone , except this time there are some references that update the premise for the 21st century. Also, the most exciting element of these films, its child left at home, ends up being a rushed plot line as its story moves the focus away from the young protagonist and onto his home invaders. 

Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper are a blast to watch as Max’s bumbling victims.

While Archie Yates deserved more moments than he gets in Home Sweet Home Alone , the pair of successors to the Wet Bandits, played by Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper , is really the key ingredient that mixes things up for this installment. Delaney and Kemper play husband and wife, Jeff and Pam Fritzovski, who are parents struggling to keep their house as the holidays roll around to the new year. 

The pair’s backstory and reasoning to invade Max’s home is well-developed and palpable. They are way more three-dimensional than Pesci and Stern’s characters. and they become more involved in the movie’s message than we’ve seen in a Home Alone film. There’s a number of laugh-out-loud moments between these two as they try to get away unscathed by Max’s antics. The supporting cast also including Kenan Thompson, Ally Maki and Aisling Bea, each of whom have their own standout comedic moments that are quite funny.

Home Sweet Home Alone is mostly a rerun of the classic, but it does sustain a few new ideas.

Home Sweet Home Alone attempts to balance the old with the new, but overall, it’s a very similar experience to the original film. There’s nothing about it that makes it more worthwhile than the 1990 original except for the fact that it’s a new Home Alone movie with some new jokes and traps. The production is thought out and its 94 minute is zippy enough to hold an audience, but, again, it’s also just another remake no one really asked for but exists anyway. If you’re a little bored of the original Home Alone this year, there's enough to it to have fun with it, with Archie Yates being a super cute and talented young star who can step to Kevin McCallister's plate. 

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.

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Home alone 2: lost in new york, common sense media reviewers.

Sequel takes slapstick shenanigans to NYC.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Not much in the way of positive messages; a vaguel

Taunting and insults among siblings, as well as pl

Plenty of comic, slapstick violence: The main char

Sign for "adult films."

Lots of insults and name-calling.

Could be a commercial for the Plaza Hotel in NYC.

Parents need to know that they can expect the same kind of slapstick violence in this second Home Alone movie, mostly against the robbers who picked on the wrong precocious kid once again. The main character throws bricks, sets deadly traps, and more in attempts to stop the bumbling duo and is gleefully proud…

Positive Messages

Not much in the way of positive messages; a vaguely pro-family message.

Positive Role Models

Taunting and insults among siblings, as well as plenty of lying and tormenting the stereotypical bumbling bad guys. Kevin befriends a homeless woman and encourages her to reach out to people more.

Violence & Scariness

Plenty of comic, slapstick violence: The main character throws bricks, shoots staples, sets deadly traps, and generally endangers the lives of the bad guys.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Could be a commercial for the Plaza Hotel in NYC. One young character has a can of Coke in his hands whenever shown.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that they can expect the same kind of slapstick violence in this second Home Alone movie, mostly against the robbers who picked on the wrong precocious kid once again. The main character throws bricks, sets deadly traps, and more in attempts to stop the bumbling duo and is gleefully proud of himself every time they get hurt. Parents should also know that the movie opens with quite a bit of family conflict and that there's fighting -- even some physical violence -- among siblings. There's a sign for adult films. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (25)
• Kids say (94)

Based on 25 parent reviews

ToTeporetermerter56 Elia Shllaku taxxtactactsct.

Home alone 2 - a woman being murdered is supposed to be funny, what's the story.

Here we go again. Kevin McAllister already got left Home Alone one Christmas; now he's on the wrong plane and headed to New York City while his family jets off to Miami for the holiday. Kevin ( Macaulay Culkin ), once again happy to be free of his boisterous family, sets out on an adventure in the big city. His father's credit card rents him a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Slapstick moments are provided by run-ins with the original movie's goofball villains, Harry and Marv ( Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern , respectively). The duo has escaped from prison and is planning to rob a toy store on Christmas Eve -- and Kevin's determined to stop them. Finally, Mom ( Catherine O'Hara ) realizes that her son's missing and frantically tries to find him.

Is It Any Good?

The early family scenes in Home Alone 2 are some of the movie's funniest moments, as are Kevin's clever survival schemes at the hotel and on the streets of New York. As a sequel, the movie manages to be funny, if predictable, and occasionally borders on heart-warming -- in an odd yet touching moment, Kevin befriends a homeless woman and encourages her to reach out to people more.

It's easy to see why fans took to Culkin's "little big guy" routine in the '90s. He's a charmer. And as Kevin's mom, Catherine O'Hara is a well-wrought mix of funny and sentimental.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about good ways to work out family conflicts. How does Kevin defend himself from his older brother's bullying? Was he right to do that?

Parents can also talk about safety issues, such as what might happen if a kid were accidentally separated from his parents and forced to go it alone in a strange city. What would be the safest way to respond to a mix-up like the one portrayed here?

Parents can also talk about the relationship between Kevin and his parents. Why does it take so long for his family to realize that he's missing?

How does this movie compare to the original? Is it as funny the second time around? Why or why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 15, 1992
• On DVD or streaming : October 5, 1999
• Cast : Daniel Stern , Joe Pesci , Macaulay Culkin
• Director : Chris Columbus
• Studio : Sony Pictures
• Genre : Family and Kids
• Topics : Holidays
• Run time : 100 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : comic action and mild language.
• Last updated : May 12, 2024

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Home Alone 2: Lost In New York Review

01 Jan 1992

120 minutes

Home Alone 2: Lost In New York

This time, Kevin McCallister (Culkin) actually manages to make it to the airport with his burgeoning brood of assorted relatives, but is then separated from his parents (Heard and O'Hara) during the (frantic last-minute scramble through the terminal. And as they fly off to a rain-sodden Christmas break in Miami, he finds himself on board a flight from Chicago to New York.

The essential difference between the two films is that the cheeky blond ubermoppet is in command of his own destiny rather more than he was in the original, as armed with a recordable Walkman and his dad's credit card he checks into the Plaza Hotel in the Big Apple (cue Donald Trump cameo) and almost immediately begins abusing room service, thus evoking the wrath of head porter Tim Curry before being rumbled and finding himself traipsing the streets. There he again encounters the newly escaped "sticky bandits" (Pesci and Stern), whom he helped put away in the first film, and again foils their plans - this time to raid a toy shop on Christmas Eve. The fun here, of course, derives from a certain familiarity with the material, as gags are repeated and situations reprised, the assumption being that what you've seen once and laughed at, you'll laugh at again.

Culkin, inevitably, is both older and wiser, with the cutesy factor that was part of his appeal first time round fading fast - thus he's given even more crisp one-liners to toss off, which he does with the delivery of a pro. Hughes' script and Columbus' direction are equally mechanical and self-aware, never quite attaining the comic heights of the original, while the violence is again pure sadistic Tom & Jerry - almost too much, in fact, when you consider the age of the target audience - as Culkin systematically tortures the two wrongdoers, lobbing bricks at Stern, firing nails into his nose and setting Pesci's hair alight. This is, inevitably perhaps, not as funny as the original - the law of diminishing returns applying here as with most sequels - although even the most demanding of viewers should find something to their liking.

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‘home alone 2’: thr’s 1992 review.

On Nov. 20, 1992, 20th Century Fox unveiled 'Home Alone 2: Lost in New York' in theaters.

By Duane Byrge

Duane Byrge

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On Nov. 20, 1992, 20th Century Fox unveiled Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in theaters, where it would go on to gross $358 million worldwide. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below: 

With John Hughes’ Home Alone 2: Lost in New York , 20th Century Fox doesn’t have merely a cash cow, it has a cash herd.

Writer-producer Hughes and director Chris Columbus have wrapped up the same winning story ornaments from 1990’s holiday smash, repackaged them in gleaming array and topped them with a sparkling slapstick climax. While some Scrooge-ish adults may niggle that this sequel is merely a superimposition of the original, kids will be delighted by its keeping all their favorite goodies.

Related Stories

'deadwood': thr's 2004 review, 'family guy': thr's 1999 review.

This Christmas the McCallister clan has decided to vacation in Florida, which doesn’t sit well with traditional-minded Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) who casts a dim eye on holiday trips to tropical climes. Once again, the frantic family’s pre-trip chaos causes Kevin to be left in the lurch — he accidentally boards the wrong plane, one headed for New York. Well, New York has snow and it has Christmas trees and, by a stroke of handbag mixup, Kevin has his dad’s cash and credit cards.

Like Frank Sinatra, Kevin is taken by New York, New York. He quickly inveigles his way into the Plaza and partakes of the high life — room service, horror videos. Once again, the funnest part of this merriment is when Kevin hoodwinks authority figures, most prominently the hotel’s fey concierge (Tim Curry).

But not all is soda pop and sundaes in the luxury suite, the two Wet Bandits (Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern) have escaped and landed, smack dab in the Big Apple. They’ve adapted their professional skills for the times, given up on home burglaries and set their beady eyes on Christmas tills, namely the cash register of a kindly toy store owner (Eddie Bracken) who has earmarked his holiday take for a children’s hospital.

Once again, tow-haired Kevin is the fly in their oily ointment, the only obstacle to their dastardly deeds. Building expertly to a smash-crash finale, as Kevin once again concocts an assemblage of wacky Rube Goldberg torture devices to thwart and thwack the burglars, Home Alone 2  is a frothily stirred merriment. Like most holiday delectations, it’s a little gooey — Kevin gives sympathetic advice to a homeless bird woman (Brenda Fricker) — but its sentiments are on the kind side.

Kids will yowl with glee at this rendition’s stoked-up slapstick. Kevin’s mechanical onslaught has a cartoon-ish furor, so furious and so brutal are his ploys. While this may strike some as sadistic, director Chris Columbus has shrewdly infused them with a Wile E. Coyote-ish quality and the mayhem emerges as good comical fun.

Culkin is breezily winning once again as the self-reliant kid alone, while Pesci and Stern deserve combat metals (especially Stern) to the bricks and slings they endure. Curry as the fuss-budget concierge is a terrific foil for Kevin’s pranks, while Devin Ratray as Kevin’s luggish brother Buzz once again is aptly offensive.

Technical contributions wrap the production in the finest of holiday shades. Sandy Veneziano’s sentimental and sumptuous production design and John Williams’ rousingly lush music are perfect garnishments. —  Duane Byrge, originally published on Nov. 16, 1992. 

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Home Alone 4K UHD Review

• October 29, 2020

Filthy Animals

There’s a cop in the McCallister home when Home Alone begins. Usually, that’s an event in a suburban residence. Everyone stops and pays attention. Not here.

Partly, it’s plot development. That officer is Joe Pesci, less a law enforcer than a law breaker scoping out the neighborhood. More importantly, it’s the chaos. The panic. Home Alone is a Christmas movie not for the lights and decorations. Instead, it’s about how uncontrolled modern life made the holiday season, everyone aimlessly running, never a moment to breathe.

Home Alone earned its popularity through 20-minutes of cartoon lunacy. Blowtorches, glass ornaments, nails, irons. It’s ludicrous, but fun. In his own way, Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) experiences an adult Christmas after his parents leave him behind. He shops and when back home, prepares for the inevitable. His gifts though don’t have wrappings, just pain.

Home Alone still works because ultimately, no one sits down to talk anymore

Entertaining as it is, the most truthful moment in Home Alone is one without any of that mania. There’s no panic, just conversation. Kevin enters a church, sits next to a man he believes is a slasher movie villain, and they talk. Just talk. Barriers comes down. Both take away a life lesson, and that only happens because the quiet around them let it happen.

The scene works because this is four movies in one, perfect to encapsulate the thematic bedlam. There’s Kevin’s parents rushing to get back home, exaggerating travel’s misery at year’s end. Counter to that, a kid’s fantasy, a second grader left alone to eat gallons of ice cream and binge movies. Home Alone uses heist movie tropes for comedy, both Daniel Stern and Pesci wonderful incompetents when paired together. Finally then is a true Christmas movie – values, warmth, love, joy. Still funny of course. After rushing home on connecting flights and toughing it out in a rental van with a polka band, Kevin’s mom (and then everyone else) ditches Kevin in the main hallway. It’s just too busy to celebrate anything, even a reunion.

Credit the script team too who do a remarkable job in making this all plausible. Events all coalesce to make the mistake believable in a way movies contrive to make them so. Phones knocked out out, power outages, miscounts, spilled milk, neighbors away for the weekend; the scenario makes sense, batting away those in the audience trying to pick up on logic faults.

Of course, even without that series of events, Home Alone still works because ultimately, no one sits down to talk anymore. No wonder we forget people – even kids.

Disney handles the 4K release, sourced from a sharp, consistent print. Grain management draws some minor ire, sticking on occasion, but generally resolved and pure. Any processing remains nearly invisible, and without damage to image integrity.

Detail flourishes in this context. Texture quality excels when displaying the McCallister home in its idyllic upper class setting. Bricks and trees all sharply define. Close-ups draw detail on Culkin’s face in addition to clothing and other items. Medium shots offer equal resolution, certainly a true 4K master given the fidelity.

Christmas allows the HDR to swell, sensationally bright when handling the lights. Strings adorning houses and even interior lamps bring a newfound glow to Home Alone , and not betraying the source. Black levels add their own heartiness, potent as needed to keep depth/dimensionality stable.

Likewise, holidays push color. Primaries swell, even dazzling given the reds set about everywhere. Excellent flesh tones keep their natural hues, allowing the rest to utilize ever greater range.

Transferring the 5.1 DTS-HD track, Home Alone’s sedate design barely utilizes the soundstage. Kids running through the house fills the fronts, but minus any particular discrete stereo use. Kevin’s traps make limited travels between speakers. If anything, it’s the score spreading out, accentuated nicely, that reminds listeners this is a surround mix. Although, to be fair, planes do pan front to back a few times.

LFE barely reaches a whimper. The blowtorch trap and music dig in a bit, but not much.

There’s nothing on the UHD. The included Blu-ray begins as it did in previous releases – a Chris Columbus and Macaulay Culkin commentary. A fun making-of almost hits 20-minutes, a stunts featurette a bit over seven minutes. Overseas dubs, a ‘90s EPK, the movie-in-the-movie, and theories on Buzz are explored briefly. Deleted/alternate scenes and bloopers run up the tally.

Remembered for its cartoon violence, Home Alone is more than that though: A clever commentary on the modern holiday experience.

User Review

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 59 full resolution uncompressed 4K screen shots grabbed directly from the UHD:

Matt Paprocki

Matt Paprocki has critiqued home media and video games for 20 years across outlets like Washington Post, Variety, Rolling Stone, Forbes, IGN, Playboy, Polygon, Ars, and others. His current passion project is the technically minded DoBlu.com . You can read Matt's body of work via his personal WordPress blog, and follow him on Twitter @Matt_Paprocki .

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Content Caution

In Theaters

• Jake Gyllenhaal as Dalton; Jessica Williams as Frankie; Daniela Melchior as Ellie; Conor McGregor as Knox; Billy Magnussen as Ben Brandt; Joaquim de Almeida as Sheriff Big Dick; Lukas Gage as Billy

Home Release Date

• March 21, 2024

Distributor

• Amazon Prime Video

Movie Review

Elwood Dalton is on the ropes.

After the tragedy of his last UFC fight, he’s been kinda staggering through life. He killed a man. And that’s left Dalton so emotionally wrung out that he can’t seem to move forward. But he can’t call it quits either. He parked his car on the railroad tracks at one point, but couldn’t force himself to stay there.

So, when Dalton gets a job offer, he reluctantly grabs a bus down to the Florida Keys to check it out. The place is called the Road House, but ironically it looks like a pretty sweet set up with a cool thatched roof and a huge deck facing the ocean.

It’s not the kind of place that looks like it needs a former UFC scrapper. But Frankie, the owner, says she needs Dalton to clean out some of the seedier types that have been causing trouble.

Dalton is reluctant initially. But he steps in to help after a motorcycle gang rolls up, ready to trash the place. “Before we start, do you have good insurance?” he asks the leader of this thuggish group. And then he proceeds to show the gang of hooligans why he was hired.

Oh, and he meets a pretty doctor named Ellie when he drives some of the broken thugs to the local hospital. All in all, it seems like a good first evening in Florida.

Turns out, though, that that biker gang wasn’t there on some drunken whim. And Frankie doesn’t just have trouble with some “seedy” types. Seems a guy named Ben Brandt has been trying to buy Frankie out. He wants to tear down the Road House and build a hotel there instead. And he’s more than happy to apply whatever pressure is required to see that happen.

‘Course, the tight-lipped Frankie hasn’t exactly shared any of that with Dalton. So as the ex-UFC guy goes about recruiting a few extra bouncers to help keep the Road House quiet, he’s got no idea that Brandt is moving forward to his next step. If a little lightweight pressure like a biker gang isn’t enough, he’ll just have to increase the pressure.

And there’s a particularly crazy heavyweight MMA fighter who fits the bill.

He’ll just have to see if this Dalton guy has the muscle to handle it.

Positive Elements

On the face of things, Dalton comes off as a rather nice guy who feels comfortable in his own skin. He’s polite with the other workers at the Road House and several locals he meets. In fact, we see him go out of his way not to hurt people in the early parts of this film. (All of which is oddly in direct conflict with the killer he becomes later on … which obviously isn’t so positive.)

Dalton meets a young girl named Charlie when he first gets to the Keys. She’s a brave soul who’s ready to stand up to bullies in order to protect her father and his bookstore (though her courage alone isn’t enough to stop them.)

Spiritual Elements

Frankie has a picture of Martin Luther King on her office wall. Dalton is nearly hit by an oncoming train. (A situation he purposely put himself in.) When he barely escapes with his life, he looks skyward with a sigh of relief.

Someone says, “God bless, God bless,” as a casual comment without any intended spiritual significance.

Sexual Content

When we first meet a hired thug named Knox, he’s jumping naked from a married woman’s window. The camera follows behind him as he casually walks past a number of people while totally naked. Then he steals a man’s coat. (We see Knox in a similarly naked state late in the film.) The woman in the window is nude, too. We see her exposed breasts.

The camera also takes it’s time closely examining Dalton’s ripped body as well while he exercises, fights and rolls out of bed in the morning. In most of those instances, he’s simply shirtless, but on one occasion he’s wearing nothing but briefs.

We see a number of young women in tight and low-cut tops at the Road House. The camera also focuses on the features of a woman in a bikini who’s dancing at a pool party. And Ellie wears a bikini-like top when she and Dalton go out on a boat. She and Dalton kiss passionately.

A local sheriff refers to himself as “Big D–k.”

Violent Content

Early on, Dalton tells someone, “No one ever wins in a fight.” And though that may be true, fighting is pretty much all anyone does in this movie.

A large man gets pummeled ‘til he’s bleeding from his nose, ears and eyes in a backroom cage fight. We see flashbacks of the UFC fight where Dalton killed a man with incredibly vicious blows to his head. We also see him punch a man in the throat, crushing his windpipe, after which Dalton lets him fall into a pool (where the man drowns). He later shoots that man’s corpse several times with a stolen gun. A badly bloodied man has his neck snapped by a visceral twist.

Those deadly examples are the just tip of the bloody iceberg here. Subsequent brawls and beatdowns are so brutal that surely others were left just as dead afterwards. The camera catches sight of a number of people as they’re bashed down on table tops and bars head- and face-first.  A man who’s set on fire is pounded in the face. Dalton gets stabbed several times to bloody effect, and another guy is impaled with wooden stakes repeatedly, leaving large bloody meat gashes on his torso and stomach.

Someone is nearly run down twice by a truck and then falls into the ocean as the truck comes down on his head. Another guy plunges into swampy water and is quickly thrashed by a hungry crocodile. People get hit with tables, chairs and pool cues.

A man is nicked several times on the throat by a straight razor. Fingers and arms are broken and twisted backward. Guns blast through boats and other vehicles. A guy in a motorboat attempts to run swimmers over. A motorboat smashes into the Road House deck, then flies up through the building’s roof.

Dalton is in the midst of pretty much all of the action described above, bashing, mashing and bloodying people. He takes on Knox and scores of others in prolonged and brutal fights.

Crude or Profane Language

More than 100 f-words and 20 s-words crowd this movie’s dialogue, along with multiple uses each of “h—,” “d–n,” “a–,” “a–hole,” “b–ch” and “b–tard.” We also hear crude references to the male anatomy. God’s name is misused some 10 times (and paired with “d–n”).

Drug and Alcohol Content

Beer and hard liquor flow freely throughout this pic. Empty bottles are generally scattered about in the Road Hose and regularly smashed on the floor (or on someone’s head).

We see a number of different people who are quite inebriated after drinking. Some end up in drunken brawls.

Dalton is given antibiotics for a potentially infected knife wound. We hear that Brandt’s father is in prison on illegal drug running charges.

Other Negative Elements

Dalton steals a trunk of stolen money from a crooked cop and gives it to someone in need. Several police officers make illegal choices at the behest of a drug lord.

Back in 1989, actor Patrick Swayze starred in a B-grade flick about a philosopher/bouncer hired to clean up a trouble-spot honkytonk in a small Missouri town. And while that movie packed enough content issues to make a Plugged In reviewer blush, it also delivered some character-driven charm. The lines, “Take it outside,” and, “Be nice,” kinda fit with Swayze’s smiling, dance-like fight moves.

Those lines of dialogue also turn up in this 2024 remake. However, this pic sports a much more … gritty perspective. In fact, star Jake Gyllenhaal is as chiseled and gritty as it gets. He looks like he could take a knife wound (or several) without noticing. In fact, you could probably get a concussion just by looking his steely six pack abs for too long. His look screams character.

But that’s pretty much all this film has in its arsenal. Other than that, there’s very little “character” in anything here. We’re introduced to people and see their story unfold. But it’s all blandly rote and meaningless.

Let me give you an example: If you heard that UFC champ Conor McGregor was going to be the muscular baddie in this film, what kind of performance did you expect from him? Screaming? Psychotic? One-dimensional? Yep. Then toss in a guy who’s repeatedly naked for “good” measure, and you’ll know what direction this pic is headed.

It’s all one beat. And I do mean beat .

In this reboot, heads get pounded on tables. Bones snap like twigs. Flesh is rent. People bleed profusely and pointlessly. Oh, and dialogue is cram-packed with f-bombs.

On top of that, heads get pounded on tables. Bones snap like twigs. Flesh … oh, I already said all that, didn’t I?

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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