New to Amazon Prime Video from today is the action movie, Road House. The film – directed by Doug Liman – stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, and Conor McGregor and is a remake/reimagining of the 1989 Patrick Swayze movie of the same name.
In the film, Gyllenhaal plays Elwood Dalton, a former UFC fighter and tough cookie, who travels to the Florida Keys to take a temporary job at a road house (titled The Road House). The bar is experiencing trouble from some rough customers, and Dalton is offered $20,000 to act as the bar’s muscle for a month and scare away anyone looking to cause problems.
Shortly after arriving, Dalton becomes the talk of the town and a hit with the bar staff. He passes his skills on to others, to ensure the bar has protection when he’s gone, and starts to win the heart of a local nurse.
But Dalton also catches the attention of the town’s crime boss, who views the bouncer-for-hire as a significant problem. This in turn brings trouble to Dalton’s door in the shape of a rival beefcake played by Conor McGregor, who throws plenty of punches and cranks the camp factor up to 11!
OK, before going any further let me make one thing clear: Road House is neither great, nor is it bad – it operates very much somewhere in the middle. At times it’s fun and demonstrates promise, and at other times it’s a bit rubbish and far too sedate for its own good.
I find it highly unlikely that anyone watching the movie will fall in love with it. There may be plenty of love for lead star Jake Gyllenhaal who is likeable as Dalton, and McGregor’s turn as the villainous Knox will become the stuff of legend, but as for everything else it’s fairly forgettable and uneventful.
At no point throughout the movie does Road House make you care about the characters or the story. Things happen on screen, the runtime ticks along, but it mostly comes and goes without ever bringing the wow factor.
In essence, Road House is two hours of a film just existing. This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, but it’s certainly not peak cinema or something you need to cancel your plans over.
However, the good news is, if you’re a fan of the original, this new take on Road House serves up a similar flavour. It has been put together very much in the same spirit of its ‘80s predecessor, with its tongue in cheek and its eye on the absurd.
As noted above, Gyllenhaal is the film’s biggest selling point and his performance is what keeps everything going. The pacing of Road House is all over the place, but Gyllenhaal is consistent and essentially the glue that holds everything together.
Built like a brick shit house, he has clearly trained, and trained, and trained for the part and completely sells the idea that Dalton is the go-to guy when you need some muscle. No matter how daft or dull this movie gets – and it swings between these two states with careless abandon – Gyllenhaal is perfect.
I have nothing bad to say about Gyllenhaal. Nothing whatsoever.
I’m also of a similar opinion of Conor McGregor, whose performance in Road House has to be seen to be believed. I don’t know if he is intentionally funny or not, but boy, his performance is a work of genius and he’s entertaining to watch.
I get the feeling McGregor was given just one stage direction and that was to “go wild”. Well, he certainly does, and every moment he appears on screen it is unpredictable, completely bonkers, and one of the campiest things I’ve ever seen.
Outside of the Gyllenhaal/McGregor combo there’s not much more to Road House. The action scenes vary from decent to jarring, the comedy operates in a state where it is both existent and non-existent, and the tone is erratic.
There are moments where it feels as if director Doug Liman has a handle on his picture, and there are times where it appears as if he’s lost control, driven it up a wall, over a cliff, and into the sea. The film somehow manages to be both entertaining and tosh in equal measure, and I can’t decipher if this on purpose or purely an accident.
To put it simply: Road House is bizarre. It’s a middle-of-the-road kind of movie, which has its moments but these moments ebb and flow with no real control, and it’s neither one thing or the other.
I’m not entirely sure why a remake of Road House exists, but it does. Somebody somewhere thought it was a good idea and now here we are.
Is it worth you bothering with? Parts of it are, but as a whole not so much.
To reiterate what I’ve said above, Road House is neither great, nor is it bad. Gyllenhaal and McGregor are worth watching, but the rest is a mix of generic or boring, and if you spend two hours in its company I expect you’ll not love it or hate it, you’ll merely acknowledge you’ve seen it.
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