Road House Movie Review: A charming Beach Western actioner

Cinema will never get tired of protagonists with a cool, devil-may-care attitude and thinly veiled pain and trauma behind their eyes. In Road House, moments after we are introduced to Jake Gyllenhaal’s ex-UFC fighter Dalton, we see him getting knifed. He barely flinches, pulls out the knife with more annoyance than pain, and simply slaps a strip of duct tape onto the wound and moves on. While this also works to introduce what kind of man our protagonist is, it also tells us that the action is going to be ruthless, wacky, and unhinged from here on out, and his emotional state throughout the film is probably going to be resolved and explored through violence. And that is precisely how it unfolds and is exactly what is so fun about the film.

Director: Doug Liman

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor McGregor, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen

Dalton is recruited by a woman to defend her bar from a rich gangster who sends wave after wave of thugs to scare her into giving up the place. This is a template we are all too familiar with. A stoic hero walks into a lawless town, charms some locals despite his best efforts, and with ruthless violence and swashbuckling style, he defends the town from the bad guys and restores peace. Road House has the basic tenets of Western in its DNA and even acknowledges it through meta dialogues. With a beautiful coastal setting, and the way of life in this beachside town being an integral part of the narrative, you could even go as far as to call Road House a 'Beach Western'. Instead of stand-offs, we have bar brawls and instead of gun-slinging, we have good old-fashioned fist fights. The fights are hyper-stylised with fluidic robo-cam movements and wide lenses that capture the dynamism of the choreography. The editing also serves to make the punches land harder. However, some VFX enhancements to the fight scenes are painfully apparent, which pulls us out of the experience. While Dalton’s past and his backstory are hastily glossed over, we hardly care because this is a template we are used to by now. And so we intuitively know where his emotional dissonance is coming from, after having seen countless films that used a similar formula. The blossoming romance between Dalton and local nurse Ellie is charming but the film hardly has enough time to develop that relationship.

Real-life UFC fighter Conor McGregor makes his acting debut with Road House, in a delightfully unhinged performance. McGregor packs heft and energy with every cartoon-ish stride, and with every delivery, that drips of his signature UFC trash talk energy. His over-the-top portrayal, which is more of a colourful performance than character-driven acting, is enjoyable if you go along with the wackiness. On the other hand, Gyllenhaal delivers a functional performance, coloured with variations of a scowl. The film could have delivered a lasting impression if it had fleshed out the promising supporting characters, resolved the many emotional arcs it opens but leaves undeveloped towards the end, and employed higher stakes. While these shortcomings could have improved the film, it is undeniable that by the time the credits roll, we walk away satisfied and wanting more. The overall appeal of Road House is the madcap energy that permeates every scene. Whether it is McGregor’s introduction scene where he walks butt-naked into a street bazaar with supreme confidence, and then it flash-cuts to him slipping into a stolen jacket while the whole place burns down, or the final scene where Gyllenhall lets go of his internal restraints and ends a man’s life with a single punch to the throat, which is delivered more like a jump scare. From the breezy setting to the hyper-stylized action scenes, Road House offers a fleeting but largely enjoyable experience.