Road House

Ok fact: remakes suck.

Going into this, I wanted to hate it. Remake of an 80's classic and Jake G? Recipe for disaster. But..... this is a remake in name only. Fresh story, the only connection to the original is he's a bouncer for hire. I'll admit it, this stands up on its own.

For lack of anything better to watch I gave this a shot. Color me surprised but I enjoyed the heck out of it. No agenda, just an old school action movie. Now the AI/CGI was nothing short of terrible, but if you look past that this movie embodies the old school Western movies it clearly mimics (and references several times, a bit on the nose).

Was I entertained? Yup. Was it Oscar worthy? No, but I'll take entertaining over Oscar Worthy every time.

Give it a shot, you may just enjoy yourself.

I don't understand the bad reviews for this. It's a film that doesn't take itself too seriously and it's obvious literally from the very beginning that it's self-aware. It knows how to laugh at itself with its over the top fight scenes and at times bad and cheesy dialogue or even the constant wild music being played in the background. Even the way Conor Mcgregor walked and talked was not serious in itself. I mean come on, it's impossible to hate on a film like this. Sure, some movies that don't take themselves seriously can still be very bad, but this one was actually pretty alright if you don't compare it to the original or just go into it with lower expectations. I'd definitely recommend this as a fun popcorn action flick if you're bored.

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.

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.

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).