Director Doug Liman has always understood the power of a leading man maximized to his fullest potential. He saw the action hero beneath Matt Damon’s baby fat with “The Bourne Identity” and the untapped comedic possibilities of an unshackled Tom Cruise in “Edge of Tomorrow.”
Now, with “Road House,” his remake of the 1989 action classic of the same name, exquisite use is made of Jake Gyllenhaal, who is ferocious and ferociously funny, allowing menace and humor to lurk beneath the actor’s disconcertingly chiseled frame. Gyllenhaal is an actor with boyish good looks, but eyes capable of portraying an infinite black hole of moral degradation. His take on Dalton, a desperate ex-UFC fighter who finds himself yanked into action to defend a bar from crooks in Key West, Florida, is Mr. Rogers biding his time until he turns into the Hulk. It’s a hell of a performance from one hell of an actor.
It’s also the only thing the new “Road House” really has going for it. Because Liman is a filmmaker whose work feels fueled by a certain kind of chaos, and whether that chaos coalesces into something spectacular or something humdrum feels like a coin flip left to the movie gods. Once you squint and look past the Gyllenhaal of it all, there’s not much on offer here. The leading man tears through a thin sketch of a story, populated by characters, performances, and even action that feel like placeholders.
A confused and confusing experiencePrime VideoWhat is one to make of “Road House”? It’s possible to imagine a more successful version that walks a tonal tightrope, but what’s here can’t help but feel confused, and maybe even a little confusing. If it wants to be a hokey ’80s throwback, it sure does spend a lot of time trying to ingratiate audiences with its many supporting characters, almost all of whom are left by the wayside once the plot takes over. If it wants to be a subversive portrait of a poor, largely non-white community under siege by the whitest and most sniveling of villains (Billy Magnussen, doing what he’s always hired to do), it sure does dance around that subtext without every properly going for the jugular. And it wants to just be a big, silly action movie … Well, it’s startlingly light on the action, although the fist fights and beatdowns Dalton brings to his enemies are sometimes satisfying (Anytime the film expands its scope to include cars and boat chases, its origins as a streaming movie become readily apparent — it looks … budget).
“Road House” is at its most effective when it’s being funny, and Gyllenhaal, playing an action hero who gladly drives a group of baddies to the ER after he smashes their heads in, is more than up for the challenge. And attention must be paid to Arturo Castro, playing a pliant and all-too-reasonable henchman, who delivers the film’s most effective jokes. The rest of the unwieldy supporting cast, including generally talented folks like Daniela Melchior, Jessica Williams, and Joaquim de Almeida, vanish into the background. But not before we learn more about them than you’d expect, falsely promising that these many tendrils are going somewhere.
When a finished movie feels like a first draftPrime VideoBut what of the action? If “Road House” could just deliver its fair share of great fight scenes, it would be worthwhile. And that’s a mixed bag, too. Gyllenhaal’s hulking, muscled out body fills the frame nicely and he’s a genuinely intimidating figure to watch, but Liman’s camera is too active, too frenetic, sacrificing clarity in an attempt to immerse. Stylistic flourishes like first person POV shots are interesting, but geography and scale are totally lost. In a post-“John Wick” era, we should expect more from out action, especially when actors as charming and dedicated as Gyllenhaal are willing to remake their bodies to sell the illusion so effectively. Not even the casting of real-life UFC fighter Conor McGregor does much to spice things up. McGregor makes for a fearsome physical threat, but every line of dialogue that comes from his mouth is a reminder that most athletes are not actors. Considering that he’s being asked to play a manic Looney Tunes villain given musclebound live-action flesh, an actor with actual command of the screen would’ve been more appropriate.
“Road House” feels like a first draft. It’s the kind of movie that’s set in Key West, makes a couple dozen deliberate head nods toward its location and its iconography, but fails to let its location feel alive or feed the story. It’s the kind of movie that surrounds its leads with many kooky supporting characters, but it’s impossible to discern why they’re there, or why they matter. Its most charged touches — yes, the dreaded politics inherent in the story — feel woefully abandoned. It’s a head-scratcher. This could’ve been simple dumb fun. Or it could’ve been subversive. Instead, it’s just a showcase for Jake Gyllenhaal’s eyes and his biceps. But when you see them in action, one understands why the movie got made.
