Bad in ways that are similar to 1989’s Road House—namely, an uneven handle on how seriously to take its silly premise, in which a notorious tough guy is hired to singlehandedly clean up a rowdy bar, this time on the Florida coast—2024’s Road House is also bad in one way that’s unique: director Doug Liman’s choice to employ a GoPro-style camera (or maybe it’s the equivalent of a VR headset) not only in the many fight sequences, but even in random shots of someone ordering a drink. It’s dizzying, in an ill-serving way, while the rest of this is just plain dumb. Jake Gyllenhaal steps into the lead role originated by Patrick Swayze, and while this Dalton doesn’t carry his health records around with him like Swayze’s did, he does inexplicably keep his cash in a tackle box.
(3/27/2024)
