Road House

Remakes of old films are all too often disappointing since they just try to rehash what made the first film work. That's not what this film is. There are some similarities (a tough guy saving a roadhouse from a greedy rich guy) but it's different film with different themes and a different atmosphere and Jake Gyllenhaal is stellar in the role of Dalton, a kind, brooding guy who has a lethal aspect which scares him.

Right now, this film has a 6.2 on IMDb, which I think under rates it. If you look at this without the lens of the original Roadhouse, it stands well enough on its own to be worth more than that.

"Road House" feels like the highest budget 'made for TV' movie ever. Despite the money thrown at it, blockbuster director, and casting of Jake Gyllenhaal the movie overall falls completely flat with awful dialogue, uninteresting characters, and a storyline so thin you can see through it.

The only positive about this movie is there were some very creative shots in the fight scenes, but even those were relatively uneven. And Connor McGregor was given far too much (poorly written) dialogue which combined with his vapid delivery takes you right out of the movie.

Overall it feels like "Road House" was the product of someone giving a 13 year old boy absolute control of a Hollywood production. The upside to this is the chaotic mess they left behind is somewhat entertaining.

I was expecting a fun action movie, and it started well. Jake is great (as youd expect), and so are most of the supporting cast.

There are also some fun moments and lines. But then Conor Mcgregor turns up and it goes down hill fast. He really can't act, and just stomps around spouting cringe one liners that he can't pull off. You'd also expect at least his fight scenes to be good, but they weren't.

With another actor in the Mcgregor role this could have been a great action movie.

The fight scenes are hit and miss with some looking very fake with some bad cgi at times too. In fact the cgi is pretty poor in general.

Ok fact: remakes suck.

Going into this, I wanted to hate it. Remake of an 80's classic and Jake G? Recipe for disaster. But..... this is a remake in name only. Fresh story, the only connection to the original is he's a bouncer for hire. I'll admit it, this stands up on its own.

For lack of anything better to watch I gave this a shot. Color me surprised but I enjoyed the heck out of it. No agenda, just an old school action movie. Now the AI/CGI was nothing short of terrible, but if you look past that this movie embodies the old school Western movies it clearly mimics (and references several times, a bit on the nose).

Was I entertained? Yup. Was it Oscar worthy? No, but I'll take entertaining over Oscar Worthy every time.

Give it a shot, you may just enjoy yourself.

Road House is exactly what it needs to be. A self-serious yet simultaneously very silly modern day riff on the Western that's packed with testosterone, crunchy action and jokes in the most unexpected places. It feels like a streaming movie in some distracting ways but it still remains one of the better ones.

Jake Gyllenhaal brings a natural intensity to Dalton as well as an impressive physical commitment. It's the possibility of his rage that he always keeps at bay that makes him so watchable in this role as he beats up his enemies and then makes sure they're okay before actually driving them to the hospital.

From the moment he's introduced, Conor McGregor is definitely something. It's the kind of performance that's never boring and never good. Every single line is delivered in hilariously awful fashion and yet he's one of the best parts of the film as he takes a very generically unhinged villain and makes it his own.

Doug Liman's direction certainly has a lot of energy as it alternates between fights in the first person, drone shots and simply getting as close as possible to the action. The fights themselves have a real weight to them with the heaviest blows really being felt however, some of the CG flourishes used to stitch them together distract rather than enhance.