Review | Amazon Prime movie review: Road House – Jake Gyllenhaal tackles Conor McGregor’s psychotic heavy in a dull film made worse by sub-par action scenes
- Gyllenhaal plays an ex-MMA fighter hired to protect a Florida Keys community who must fight a psychotic heavy, played by actual ex-MMA fighter Conor McGregor
- Road House is a remake of a 1989 film of the same name that lacks its one-liners and homoeroticism. Doug Liman’s action camerawork is headache-inducing
2/5 stars
Rowdy Herrington’s gleefully ridiculous 1989 beat-’em-up Road House cemented the reputation of its star Patrick Swayze as both smouldering romantic lead and formidable action hero.
The actor would appear in better films, like Ghost (1990) and Point Break (1991), but nowhere were his two sides so perfectly in concert as when he played Dalton, mulleted bouncer par excellence.
Thirty-five years later it falls to Jake Gyllenhaal, Swayze’s co-star in Donnie Darko, to resurrect the mythic minder.
Under the direction of Doug Liman, who gave us The Bourne Identity that launched the Jason Bourne film franchise, this Road House trades the backwaters of Missouri for the significantly sexier Florida Keys, with Dalton now a disgraced UFC fighter making ends meet by taking out the trash.
