Road House

It's been a weekend-of-the-80s with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (enjoyed it more than I expected) and now this remake of Road House, streaming - controversially so - on Prime Video. 

As is the case with any remakes, the question is always kind of...why? I tend to be more hesitant with direct remakes than I do sequels, reboots, or legacy sequels, but I can be open minded. For this new Road House, the pull of Jake Gyllenhaal, a great first trailer, and Conor McGregor (plus the ease of streaming) had me interested. 

All things considered, Doug Liman's film could have been a total disaster and the whole thing still feels pretty unnecessary, but it is a fun time with some solid value-add elements. From what I'm seeing thus far, it's slightly overpraised, particularly because the 3rd act feels TV-movie quality in terms of execution and CGI.

Road House quickly establishes itself as a fun, and rather brutal, action film. We're introduced to Gyllenhaal's Dalton who is an easy-going, quick-witted character with Jason Bourne-esque moves. He gets invited down to the Florida Keys - which is apparently as Florida-crazy as you can imagine - to help defend a bar against a rowdy crowd. Largely thanks to Gyllenhaal, the gorgeous setting, and the fights, I was pretty invested in this first half of the film. It plays like a breezy "I-gotta-defend-my-town" classic 80s plot and seems to be having fun. Eventually, Conor McGregor makes his bare-assed appearance as the crazy villain, Knox, who is definitely underdeveloped but damn fun. McGregor's signature swagger is on display at all times, which makes it easy to hate his character but hard to look away. Is his acting the best? No, but he's a menacing force when it counts. 

Eventually however, I felt like Road House lost its way. It went from having bar brawls with musicians still playing in the background to Gyllenhaal jumping between two colliding boats. The hard (ok maybe not "hard", but medium) left turn into full blown action hero isn't that big of a deal, but unfortunately this 30 minute section is marred with truly atrocious CGI. Explosions look fake, green screen is inexplicably everywhere, moving vehicles are fake half the time, and Billy Magnussen's body flings from a crashing boat like a poorly-photoshopped internet meme. Luckily, the violence along the way as it pertains to melee combat is pretty stupendous. It's consistently brutal, has some fun film tricks, and features unique MMA-based choreography. 

I enjoyed Road House for what it is, but as a remake of a "classic" 80s film (note the quotes there), I think there was only ever so high it was going to score. Gyllenhaal and McGregor elevate the material in different ways and there're definitely some great things about it (music, fights, location), but by the end I was less impressed than how I had started. 

Rapid Rath's Review Score | 6/10