Review | Welcome to ‘Road House’
From actor Jake Gyllenhaal and director Doug Liman, “Road House” revives an ‘80s classic with mixed, uninventive results. Photo collage by JACK SUNDBLAD, Staff Photographer
This article contains mild spoilers for “Road House.”
Doug Liman’s “Road House” is not any great improvement on the Patrick Swayze-starring original, but for a movie whose greatest strive seems to be ensuring star Jake Gyllenhaal got in incredible shape, it’s pretty fun. It has many of the same thrills as the first. Ass-kicking is the central sun-like force around which everything else revolves, but it is frequently confounded in its lack of restraint.
Whether it be coaxing performances out of Post Malone or veering into the world of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), it becomes apparent that this was a movie made up of decisions no one said no to, and therefore, is a delight to watch.
“Road House” has traded Missouri (where the original film is set) for Florida and sees Dalton (Gyllenhaal) as a disgraced former UFC fighter haunted by his greatest mistake. We meet him scaring off competitors in an underground fighting ring and taking a knife in the abdomen like a champ when he’s recruited by a road house owner (Jessica Williams) to help bring order to her lawless establishment.
Dalton settles into life in Florida, befriending the locals and sparking a romance with a doctor (Danielle Melchoir) he meets after one of his many clashes in order to protect the bar — which occurs right after maybe the funniest scene of the movie where Dalton drives his fallen combatants to the hospital to the radio tune of The Beach Boys’ “Kokomo.” Dalton begins to uncover a conspiracy to shut the road house down, masterminded by the son of a billionaire, who sends in a maniacal enforcer (Connor McGregor) to get the job done.
Gyllenhaal has been on quite the trail in the past few years with his filmography. It seemed for a while that he was content consistently unleashing swirling torrents of rage destined for TikTok acting compilations, bound in bluster. See Michael Bay’s “Ambulance” or his performance as Mysterio in the world of Spider-Man for reference.
You’d think that Gyllenhaal’s aggro excellence would make him uniquely qualified for this kind of movie, but here, however, Gyllenhaal turns the temperature way down. He brings a ting of idiosyncrasy to Dalton, in contrast with the confidence Patrick Swayze brought to the role, which makes the film substantially more watchable. The film feels fine-tuned to serve his strengths as a performer since Jake Gyllenhaal can’t play a normal person, at least not anymore. I think that ship sailed after John Mulaney and “The Sack Lunch Bunch”, but it seems he also doesn’t want to just fall into an archetype either.
When Dalton asks his opponents whether or not they have health insurance, it doesn’t feel like a winking, sly power move, but rather an authentic expression of his own ideology and his reluctance to fight, despite it being what he excels at. He shares more in common with the steeliness of Clint Eastwood in the old spaghetti westerns — a comparison made by a character in the film more than once — than the cocky action hero with one-liners at the ready.
Gyllenhaal doesn’t just recontextualize the character and his general vibe. He brings layers to the character that inform the story. The movie refuses to make him macho, even when his most formidable enemy arrives, and he initially walks away from the fight. Liman’s showcasing where we are with cinematic masculinity decades from the original. When Dalton dodges questions from his love interest, she rightfully chastises him. It’s not a moment of mystery that only makes him cooler; it's an immature, cowardly moment of self-preservation.
Liman is no stranger to spotlighting charismatic movie star weirdos. He made one of my favorite Tom Cruise movies, “Edge of Tomorrow,” but his and Gyllenhaal's aligning with one another is pretty exciting at this point in their careers, particularly given both of their distinct processes.
The fight scenes are the movie’s most significant flaw, which is not what you want from a film this oriented around its bare-knuckle brawls, particularly when you’re casting actual people whose primary trade is punching people like McGregor. Liman is no stranger to action. This is the man who introduced us to Jason Bourne in “The Bourne Identity.” The action is neither choreographed enough to impress nor in your face enough to evoke any real reaction. There are no “Oh shit!” moments here.
Liman’s emphasis on the fluidity in the camera work takes away from what it’s showing. The whizz-bang-pow of the camera as it glides from punch to impact is nifty at first and certainly engaging, especially when it embraces a video-game, first-person style, but it grows tiresome the more it’s implemented. You start to see the digital seams at play, too, given this approach. A speedboat crash onto dry land particularly made me cackle
Punches feel half-hearted even if they’re thrown by UFC champions. “Road House’s” fight scenes have more in common with a child mashing action figures together than the scrapping excellence of superior action films.
One can’t really talk about this film without addressing the Conor McGregor performance running through the middle of it. This might be the first performance I’ve seen in a while that feels undirected. I’m convinced they just let him roam and do whatever he wanted to appease him. Is this performance good? Probably not, but I was pretty damn entertained every time McGregor beamed that mad grin as he came to blows with all around him.
He’s a nice foil to Gyllenhaal’s relative calm, and he supercharges the movie every chance he gets. Gyllenhaal is steadily gassing up this movie’s engine, but then McGregor is a healthy dose of Mountain Dew. This is whatever the opposite of Shakespearean is.
As for the rest of the cast, Williams brings a welcome helping of wit. I always appreciate bringing comedic voices into this genre and letting them be funny. So does Arturo Castro as one of the henchmen who repeatedly encounters Dalton and awkwardly tries to make small talk with him. Billy Magnussen is also doing exemplary asshole work as the film’s secondary antagonist.
Is this a good film? No! But is it worth your time? Absolutely. If any part of you has ever wanted to watch Gyllenhaal and McGregor spar in the middle of the ruins of a bar, split asunder by both a pickup truck and a speedboat, you are in luck. It’s as if you drank a kale smoothie with a bag of Doritos. There’s something good in there for sure, but all the mush overpowers it.
