Prime Time: Road House (2024)

I was looking forward to Road House since I saw the first trailer for it, a trailer that showcased just how much time star Jake Gyllenhaal had been putting in at the gym. Yes, the original film is a beloved bit of cheese, but it’s no untouchable classic. Let’s not forget that it already has a sequel that very few people care for.

Gyllenhaal plays Dalton, a legendary figure who is hired by Frankie (Jessica Williams) to help sort out the trouble she has been having in her Florida bar. Dalton rolls in to Glass Key (the name of the area, and one of many fun little nods to other films) and starts cleaning house, but it isn’t long until he realised that there’s something more going on. Frankie’s bar is being targeted by thugs who work for a rich douchebag (Ben Brandt, played by Billy Magnussen). And if his thugs keep failing to achieve the desired result then it will soon be time for the much more dangerous Knox (Conor McGregor) to swagger in and start smashing everything up. A storm is brewing, but that doesn’t stop Dalton from making time to enjoy the company of a local doctor, Ellie (Daniela Melchior).

There are things to pick at here, and plenty of things that viewers may dislike, particularly when it comes to the way of staging and shooting some of the fight scenes, but I cannot think of any way this could have been a better remake/reworking of the original film. The tone is similarly fun, punctuated with brutal violence (of course), the lead character is always looking to defuse any situation before things get physical, and the plotting manages to replicate what we’ve seen before without feeling like a carbon copy.

Well done to relatively new writers Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry for crafting a script that changes enough to modernize the idea while also remaining respectful and admiring of the original film. The central concept may be nonsense, and our lead spends a lot of time smirking at people who don’t realise what is about to happen to them, but at no point are viewers made to think they are watching something outright laughable. Everyone is kept safe alongside a confident main character, but the danger keeps piling up around them, and his own darkness is something he doesn’t want to tap into.

Director Doug Liman handles the whole thing quite well. Aside from some computer trickery that doesn’t always work in the fight scenes, and a frustrating handful of night-time moments that don’t seem to be lit as well as they should, it’s generally slick entertainment, helped massively by Gyllenhaal being so committed to his role.

That commitment can be shown in every defined muscle, with the actor displaying a physique normally shown in anatomy textbooks that display the musculature of the human body. It is a hell of a look, and Gyllenhaal backs it up with a physicality and personality that I am sure Swayze would have liked to see. It’s a winning performance, and the best thing in the film. Magnussen is a lot of fun as the villain who doesn’t like to get his own hands dirty, the kind of person you know is failing as his hair becomes more messed up in the middle of some unfolding carnage, and McGregor . . . hmmmmm, I think he is good at doing what he is asked to do. It’s definitely a difficult performance to recommend though, as he is asked to be the kind of cocky and careless menace who is unleashed in the second half of the movie like an angry Rottweiler that has been flicked in the testicles and then let off the chain. Melchior is fine in the least interesting role, and the role that feels most like the writers tried a bit too hard to keep a template from the original film, Williams is good, if a bit underused, and there are decent supporting turns from Lukas Gage, Joaquim de Almeida, Hannah Love Lanier, Darren Barnet, JD Pardo, Arturo Castro (scene-stealing and hilarious), and even a cameoing Post Malone at the very start of the film.

I never thought this was going to surpass, or even equal, the first film, but it’s not as if everyone here got together to remake Citizen Kane. A little perspective is a good thing. I love Road House, but that is just as much to do with nostalgia and the unbeatable power of Sam Elliott’s beard as it is to do with the film itself. This remake lacks both of those ingredients, and also lacks a decent selection of soundtrack choices, but I still had a lot of fun with it. I think people should give it a chance, and I think it will be judged less harshly by viewers who can separate the concept from their sentimental attachment to the original film.

7/10

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American Made (2017)

American Made is a glossy, lively biopic based on the life of Barry Seal, a pilot who ended up helping the CIA, smuggling drugs, and getting himself entangled in the whole Iran-Contra affair. Or so it would seem. Considering the personality involved, the potential for exaggeration and outright untruths, I am not sure of just how much to believe, and how much to take with a large pinch of salt. So, to be on the safe side, I took everything here with a large pinch of salt.

Directed by Doug Liman, reteaming with Tom Cruise after the superb sci-fi action of Edge Of Tomorrow AKA Live Die Repeat, this is a slick, fun, piece of entertainment. It's also something we have seen done many times before, and usually done much better.

The problems start with the script. It feels lazy, a melange of moments and cliches from recent and not-so-recent biopics. and, despite the runtime (this is about the two hour mark), it all feels a bit sparse. Writer Gary Spinelli isn't interested in the actual mechanics of the lifestyle on display, he doesn't even seem that interested in the risk to life and damage to others until it suits the pacing of the film to throw in a small set-piece. No, he just wants to show what amounts to a greatest hits photo album of the life of a man who was surely more complicated than the charming douchebag depicted here.

Speaking of charming douchebags, who the hell gets Tom Cruise for a role like this and then doesn't let him go full tilt with the bags of charm he has at his disposal? His cocky charm has been put to good use over the years in a number of roles that have allowed him to show more than a hint of danger glinting from that ultra-white smile. Rain Man, The Color Of Money, and Magnolia are the three best examples I can think of, taking his confident persona and turning it, even ever so slightly, against him. This film doesn't do that. It may try to, but it doesn't, perhaps because it seems to always depict the version of events as told by Seal, which doesn't allow viewers to consider how much of his claims may have been exaggerated or distorted to reposition himself in a better light.

The rest of the cast do okay with what they're given, although many of the supporting players are a bit wasted. Alice Eve plays "wife who goes along with things", Caleb Landry Jones is "brother who throws spanner in works", and it's only Domhnall Gleeson who gets a chance to make a better impression, playing a CIA operative making use of Seal without ever pretending that he can be dropped like a hot potato whenever things go bad.

Liman hits all of the notes that you expect him to hit. There are no surprises here, apart from the failure of many scenes to rise above average, and nothing to put this anywhere near the level of most of his other films (even Jumper, which nobody else seems to like as much as I do).

In summation, there's a decent soundtrack in search of a better movie to accompany. You can find half a dozen better movies for both the director and the star of this one. It won't ruin your whole day if you give it a watch, but I expect this to be largely forgotten a year from now.

5/10

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Go (1999)

Directed by Doug Liman, and written by John August, Go is often described to people as a teen version of Pulp Fiction. Seriously, you'll find that phrase in almost every major review of the movie, so I decided not to buck the trend here. It's got drugs, some violence, plenty of dark humour, a great soundtrack, and a few main events shown from the viewpoints of different characters, which all means that the comparison point is a good one, even if Pulp Fiction is itself hugely influenced by a multitude of movies to have come before it.

Anyway, let me try to describe the various escapades. First of all, we get Ronna (Sarah Polley) looking to make some quick money as she faces eviction over the Christmas holiday season. She seizes her chance when a couple of guys (Scott Wolf and Jay Mohr) come into her work looking for her colleague, Simon (Desmond Askew). Simon often sells drugs so when these two potential customers start to enquire about any other potential supply avenues, Ronna decides to arrange a sale. She then has to buy product from dealer Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant), which puts her at serious risk if anything goes wrong during the proposed exchange. Things go wrong. Meanwhile, Simon is having a blast in Las Vegas with his friends (Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer and James Duval). Vegas is such a glorious place to be, as long as nothing goes wrong. Things go wrong. There's more to discover here, but part of the joy of the film is finding out how the tales are interconnected and just what changes when seen from a different viewpoint.

Liman and August do a fantastic job here, keeping the energy levels up without the film every feeling hyperactive, and peppering conversations with great lines and references without it feeling overly-stylised. They also take a number of standard situations that we've seen done many times before and manage to give each one a twist, often weaving confidently between the sublie and the ridiculous. All of this would be impossible if it wasn't for the fantastic ensemble cast, taking the material and elevating every bit of it.

Polley, Wolf, Mohr, Askew and Diggs have rarely been better, and Olyphant is as great as he always is. Then we have William Fichtner as a slightly strange lawman, Jane Krakowski as his equally strange wife, Nathan Bexton as a pill-popper who hallucinates about conversations with cats and dancing with strangers to the Macarena, and even Katie Holmes does okay in her role. There's even a small, fun role for Melissa McCarthy that's worth looking out for.

There's one character I have yet to mention, and that is the soundtrack. Jam-packed with cracking tunes, Go has one of the best soundtracks of the 1990s. It's one that I listen to a lot, and it's also one that perfectly complements the visual style of the film. From the opening Columbia Pictures logo to the closing credits, this is another film that proves just how important the perfect song choice can be.

It's worth noting that what I find fun and cool could just as easily be viewed as tiresome and annoying by someone else. This is a film I used to recommend heartily to everyone until I started to realise that not everyone was won over by it in the same way as I was. I still heartily recommend it, but now do so with the standard, usually unspoken, proviso: No film is for everyone.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Special-Sarah-Polley/dp/0767835093/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1418650151&sr=1-2&keywords=go

Bonus Review: Edge Of Tomorrow (2014)

Live. Die. Repeat. That's the tagline for Edge Of Tomorrow, a film most easily described as Groundhog Day meets Saving Private Ryan, with the sentinels from The Matrix movies added to the mix. Tom Cruise is the leading man, sharing the screen with Emily Blunt, for the most part, and director Doug Liman is the man doing his best to ensure that viewers get plenty of bang for their buck.

Cruise plays Cage, the hero of the movie, but you wouldn't know that from the first scenes featuring his character. Because Cage is not a soldier. He's a Major, yes, but one who has always managed to avoid being involved in any major battle with an invading alien force that has been waging war against humans for the past five years. When Cage defies a request to lead troops into a final battle that his military superiors predict will lead to victory he is arrested, demoted, and thrown in with a squad of soldiers who are all making final preparations a day ahead of going into the battle. When tomorrow comes along, Cage can't even work his battle-suit properly. He has no idea how to turn off the safety. He dies pretty quickly. And then wakes up again, handcuffed and about to be bawled out by Master Sergeant Farell (Bill Paxton). This happens again. And again. And again. It turns out that Cage has absorbed some power from the enemy, an ability to reset the day when he dies, but it's only a woman named Rita (Emily Blunt), a war hero who has, at one point, gone through exactly what Cage is experiencing. Can they use the power to change fate and win the war?

Based on source material by Hiroshi Sakurazaka (which goes by the better title "All You Need Is Kill" - the original title for the movie), Edge Of Tomorrow delivers everything that you expect from it. If you've seen the trailer then you won't be sold short. Many reviewers have already commented on the fact that this is the ultimate videogame movie and that's a good point. Cage has to learn with each journey, and whenever he's killed he ends up "respawning" back at the start, although viewers are saved the full journey on each occasion, joining the characters instead at every main junction to see how bad decisions are overturned, and how the main character develops his muscle memory on each attempt. The script, by Christopher McQuarrie, Jex Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth, is sharp and witty throughout. You do get one or two scenes of exposition, of course, but they're perfectly done, brief and informative, before everyone gets back to battleground manoeuvres.

There will always be people who hate Tom Cruise, no matter what he does. Well, screw 'em is what I say. I've been a fan of the man for years, and he almost always delivers the goods when it comes to blockbuster fare of this type. This is another good performance. It's fun to see his character develop throughout the movie, especially in the first third, which makes it clear that he's not a soldier. He is, in fact, a bit of a useless coward. Cruise puts on his big grin, and isn't afraid (as he never has been) to twist it in a way that shows just how his character has managed to get to where he is without seeing combat. That grin brings a whole backstory that the writers don't need to make explicit. But when the grin disappears and the constant battling starts to reshape Cage into something he never thought he would be - a soldier - it becomes easy to root for him, and easy to believe in his transformation. Because Cruise makes it easy.

Nobody seems to hate Emily Blunt, and her performance here isn't likely to upset anyone. She's tough, likable, smart and naturally beautiful without ever being made into "the girl who needs saved" or any of that nonsense. Oh, there is added motivation for the character played by Cruise, but throughout most of the movie it is Blunt's character who plans and drives everything forward, reminding everyone who needs reminding that their lives are a small sacrifice if it means stopping the slaughter of the human race.

Elsewhere, Brendan Gleeson is enjoyable in his small role, Bill Paxton steals a couple of scenes as soon as he appears, and Noah Taylor is the scientist who provides some exposition. Jonas Armstrong, Tony Way, Kick Gurry, Franz Drameh, Dragomir Mrsic and Charlotte Riley are the main soldiers who end up stuck with the rookie in their midst. The main thrust of the storyline demands that these characters stay on the sidelines during many sequences, but the script does a great job of making them identifiable enough for whenever they get to move back into focus.

Liman spins a number of plates here and makes it all seem pretty effortless. The action moments are as intense as they need to be, but never headache-inducing, the plotting and pacing are perfect, and the humour running through almost every scene helps to offset the darker elements of the film. Cruise can't just fall asleep every night and then wake up again. He has to be killed. Remember: Live. Die. Repeat.

There are one or two big plot holes (almost always inevitable with this kind of material), but if you're sitting thinking of them while the movie is unfolding then you're a tough viewer to please. I was, admittedly, ever so slightly disappointed by the final few minutes, but this is superior sci-fi action fare, and I don't see why anyone should write it off because of some very minor flaws. On the contrary, I encourage all sci-fi movie fans to check this one out as soon as possible. Ironically, after the first trip you may even want to watch it again.

8/10

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