Road House

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.

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.

One of the great things about the original Road House was seeing Dalton clean house and improve the bar bit by bit. That is severely lacking here with next to no time spent in the actual Road House and barely any screen time is given to the people at the bar. One of the highlights of the Swayze movie was him getting to know the staff and getting rid of the bad elements at the bar. Nothing of the sort goes on in this movie.

Jaoquim de Almeida is wasted as the sheriff and has little to do while Daniela Melchior has less of a role than Kelly Lynch had in the original if that was possible.

The movie's saving grace is Jake Gyllenhaal who is clearly having a lot of fun in the role and has good chemistry with an OTT Conor McGregor in the movies best moments. Best stick to the original cult classic.

(Glad to see Arturo Castro's Moe live, by far and away the best character in the whole movie).

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.