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‘Road House’ Review: Jake Gyllenhaal Takes Command in an Ultraviolent Retread That Makes Slumming Look Artful
Jake Gyllenhaal takes command, and Doug Liman stages it like a Jason Statham movie directed by Jonathan Demme.
Liman stages the pulp for maximum realism (he wants you to believe what you’re seeing), and Jake Gyllenhaal, as a fallen Ultimate Fighting Championship brawler who gets hired to clean up a road house in Glass Key, Fla., gives a true performance. As Dalton, not a bouncer but a “cooler” (i.e., the coolest level of super-bouncer), who is hired to clean up a hooligan dive bar in Jasper, Missouri, Swayze sizes up every adversary with an utter lack of fear — he’s all Zen blue eyes and cheekbones and “I wouldn’t bother to fight you” lethal calm. And once Dalton puts Dell (JD Pardo), ringleader of the local motorcycle gang, out of business with the help of the crocodile who lives under the houseboat he’s crashing in, Brandt’s powerful father calls in a brute-force fixer: Knox, played by the Irish mixed-martial-arts fighter Conor McGregor in a stunning movie debut.
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