Road House Parent Guide

Elwood Dalton’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) days as a middleweight UFC champion are well and truly behind him, and he makes rent by showing up in seedy underground bareknuckle fights and intimidating his opponents into quitting. But he knows his life has stalled, so when he gets a strange job offer to come work security at a bar in the Florida Keys, Dalton figures it might be time for a change.

Frankie (Jessica Williams), the bar’s owner, is having a rough time with some aggressive bikers who have been thrashing the place for months. No other private security firm has managed to sort it out, and the cops are no help at all. It looks like Dalton’s got his work cut out for him – at least on the job. His past, however, seems to have followed him to Florida, and coming to terms with that might take a lot more than a strong right hook.

I wasn’t expecting much from the movie, and it sure didn’t disappoint. Cliché follows cliché in a blur of fists, teeth, and profanity until our bruised hero climbs out of this neat little mess. The plot demands little and offers little in return. Sure, the story runs a little long, but no one’s here for the character work and clever scheming. Let’s move on to the fighting.

I’ve got bad news about the fighting for genre fans. Sometimes the fight scenes look fine, and the choreography can be exciting and interesting. Sometimes, though, director Doug Liman plays games with the editing and the frame rate (I suspect it’s been undercranked to make the action look faster), which makes the film feel like it’s being viewed on a PS2 with a patchy video cable. It’s rough. I couldn’t believe a movie with this kind of budget would look this bad, so I spent a good ten minutes changing all the TV settings I thought were causing the issue, but nope. The movie is just sloppy.

I’ll also give you a heads up: Road House is not going to be a winner with family audiences – a shock, I know, but try to bear with me. I counted at least 176 profanities, but frankly, trying to keep track of the cursing in this movie felt like an Olympic event for critics. I barely saw parts of the movie because I was so busy taking notes. Added to the general effusion of colorful language are frequent instances of bloody violence, some murders, and frequent shots of Conor McGregor walking around with his backside out like some kind of homicidal Winnie the Pooh. It’s not just the kids who don’t need to see that – I’d kind of like to have missed it myself.