Posted by One of the most unexpected things this year has given us, and the thing we did not know we needed, is a remake of the Patrick Swayze cheese-fest Road House. A remake directed by Doug Liman (Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow) and starring Jake Gyllenhaal as the taciturn bouncer Dalton and Conor McGregor (yes, that Conor Mcgregor) as the unhinged wrong’un Knox.
It follows the same general gist as the original but this time Dalton is an ex professional fighter with the obligatory demons from his past haunting him. He gets head hunted to be a bouncer for The Roadhouse, a rough and ready bar in Glass Keys, Florida that attracts the wrong sort of crowd. After humiliatingly roughing up some ne’er do wells he unwittingly steps into a world of criminals, gangsters and drugs and steps on a lot of toes in the process.
This is a perfunctory and sometimes entertaining rehash, devoid of the so bad its good charm of the 1989 original. The humour is mostly stilted and the plot is just an empty vessel for the action, which does most of the heavy lifting here. It colourful and cartoonish and plays out like a video game, albeit one with ropey special effects. The gonzo fight between Dalton and Knox at the bar looks airlifted from Mortal Kombat, but the fact that the band kept playing throughout was a nice, Blues Brothers like touch. The fights are entertaining but it have no lasting impact
From the criminals and the bar staff to the police – The acting is standard, B-Movie fare. Gyllenhaal is beefed up for the role, and does his best Clint Eastwood, man of few words act. His Dalton gets interesting when his patience snaps and he goes berserk in the second half. Built like an upside down triangle, Mcgregor plays the brash, meathead with a short fuse and his brains in fists surprisingly well – I bet he had to search far and wide for inspiration.
The increasingly intense and cartoonish violence paints over the still visible cracks of this unnecessary and uninspired remake of Road House.
4/10
Lofty Music and Film 