The long-awaited “Road House” reboot starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor McGregor finally released March 21 on Prime Video, and suffice to say the reviews have been mixed.
After 10 days, the reimagining of the 1989 cult classic with Patrick Swayze has garnered a 59 percent critics score and a 55 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, while IMDb users have rated it a respectable 6.2 out of 10. On MMA Junkie’s list of The best (and worst!) MMA movies of all time, it ranks No. 5.
Perhaps this highlighted “Audience Says” line from Rotten Tomatoes best sums it up:
“Road House” can sometimes be so bad it’s good, but more often, the uneven acting and ridiculous story are just disappointing.
As for this writer’s rating? In a vacuum, it’s a terrible film. But also, it’s not that bad for what it is if you catch my drift.
In any case, regardless of any criticism of the film as a whole, what is cool about “Road House” are the fight scenes, including the final showdown between former UFC fighter Dalton (Gyllenhaal) and the completely obnoxious Knox (McGregor). While McGregor, the UFC’s biggest star, went into filming with a humble approach given this was his first major acting role, you would expect him to have quite a bit of input on his fight scenes.
Which he did, as you can see from this video of rehearsal McGregor shared on Instagram:
Whether a film is good or bad, movie magic is still movie magic, and that’s always cool to watch behind the scenes.
