I have been meaning to watch this movie after its release on Prime Video few days ago, but I just got the time to do it last night. I was immediately interested in giving it a try after watching the trailer. Anyway, why don't I just get to it?

Brief Story Line

Elwood Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal - Ambulance, Spider-man: Far From Home etc) was former UFC fighter who had to make money from underground fight until Frankie (Jessica Williams - Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Shrinking TV series etc), owner of the Road House in Florida Keys offered him a job as bouncer. Though at first he rejected, Dalton later decided to accept the offer. 

While working in the roadhouse, Dalton met with Ellie (Daniela Melchior - Fast X, Assassin Club etc) the local doctor, after having a run in with motorcycle gang who apparently were working for crime boss Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen - Lift, Made for Love TV series etc). Things got complicated when a ruthless enforcer called Knox (MMA fighter Connor McGregor) was assigned to help Brandt and chase away Dalton as he was hindering Brandt's big project.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I said above that I was game once I watched the trailer of this movie as I thought it would be filled with lots of hand to hand fights since the lead character was a former UFC fighter. And it was not disappointing as there were plenty of fist fights that were satisfying. If I had not known any better, I would have thought that Jake Gyllenhaal was a real professional fighter with amazing martial arts skill. Especially during his fights with Connor McGregor (in his feature debut) and other people.

The movie itself was said to be a remake of 1989 film of the same title starring Patrick Swayze which I was not aware of. Probably because it never played in Indonesian theaters back then or even if it did, likely it was not blockbuster material. In any case, the original was heavily criticized and nominated for several Golden Raspberry awards including worst movie and worst actor. However, it did become cult classic and audience seemed to be enjoying it, which I think was the main reason for the remake.

This time the movie did not seem to annoy the critics as much, with some praising Gyllenhaal's performance but criticizing the overuse of CGI. I was quite in agreement on Gyllenhaal since he seemed to fit the role nicely. Aside from having the convincing fighting capabilities, his characterization was good too with wonderful facial expressions during rage or when talking to people who looked up to him. As for the CGI, it was still OK and not to the point of extremely annoying. Although it might seemed a bit over the top, but it did provide the desired effects of feeling amazed (at least for me).

I also felt the story to be pretty standard and did not require any head scratching to understand. Aside from Dalton, Knox and Brandt, the other characters did not leave any lasting impression to me. In addition to the names I mentioned earlier, there were few other cast like Joaquim de Almeida (Missing etc) as the Sheriff, B. K. Cannon (Switched at Birth TV series etc) as Laura the book store keeper, Lukas Gage (You TV series Season 4 etc) as Billy and few others. Oh btw, there were also some appearances of bands performing in the Road House whose names could be seen in the closing credits. In case you are wondering, there was a mid end credit that you could watch.

Overall this was a fun action film where the fist fights were entertaining to see and had a great enough climax fight. The director Doug Liman (Chaos Walking, Edge of Tomorrow and few other hit movies) managed to show the strength of Gyllenhaal and Connor McGregor to make it enjoyable. However, there was a bit of inconsistency in pace to my opinion and probably too long as well (121 minutes duration). I could not say whether this is better than the original cause I never saw that, but to me this one was quite worth the time. So if you are interested in an entertaining action movie with simple story, then you could give this a try.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars