Jake Gyllenhaal Remake of Patrick Swayze Classic
Early in Doug Liman’s “Highway Home” remake, Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) explains his present employment scenario to a younger lady he befriends at a roadside bookstore. He tells her that he moved to Glass Key, Florida after accepting a job supply from a stranger whose roadhouse grew to become overrun with rowdy thugs who like to lift obscene quantities of hell, and that he agreed to make use of his background as a former UFC fighter to wash the place up.
“Sounds just like the plot of an previous Western,” she tells him, which might be an astute remark in regards to the scenario’s ridiculousness if it wasn’t underscored by the equally ridiculous notion that center schoolers in 2024 are referencing Nineteen Sixties Western tropes in informal conversations. However that’s simply the sort of film we’re coping with right here.
Every thing about this iteration of “Highway Home” is ridiculous, from the assertion that Dalton is so muscular that full-on stabbings can’t harm him (solely his guilt about being an excessive amount of of an alpha male can do this) to the implication that the Florida Keys are some trendy model of 1800s Australia the place all of our most unhinged criminals run wild. And that’s earlier than we even get to the sheriff who introduces himself as “Huge Dick,” the unlikely partnership between Gyllenhaal and a crocodile, and the truth that Conor McGregor performs a felony who spends his first scene strolling down the road absolutely bare for no obvious purpose.
It’s the sort of movie that ought to go off the rails — and really practically does at fairly just a few moments — however is finally saved by the truth that there isn’t a rational second in its total two-hour operating time. The smallest iota of sanity would short-circuit this story like a grain of sand in a microchip, however Liman and screenwriters Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry mercifully spare us from that destiny and allow us to bask within the asininity of a mildly entertaining hangout film.
Very similar to the 1989 Patrick Swayze automobile that impressed it, “Highway Home” begins with probably the most Nineteen Eighties-ass premise you would presumably think about. Frankie (Jessica Williams) operates a Florida roadhouse that she inherited from her late uncle, whose dry humorousness prompted him to call his roadhouse The Highway Home and his houseboat The Boat. However her goals of operating a booze-filled oasis for Florida locals have been hampered by the bar fights, vandalism, and basic rough-housing that the native hellions rain down on a nightly foundation. So she asks round till she finds the hardest man on the streets (naturally performed by Put up Malone) and decides to throw cash at him till he agrees to grow to be her head of safety. However when she sees him hen out of a struggle with a fair harder S.O.B., she opts to rent that man as an alternative. And so Dalton finally ends up on a Greyhound bus to the Florida Keys.
Dalton makes fast work of the primary few batches of goons who roll by, however it quickly turns into clear that they’re simply lackeys for a extra nefarious operation that wishes to take down the bar. The island’s felony nepo child Billy (Lukas Gage) isn’t any match for Dalton, however the arrival of his imprisoned father’s lunatic enforcer Knox (McGregor) forces our hero to achieve into the darkest depths of his soul and produce out the internal animal that made him a championship fighter.
Gyllenhaal’s star has all the time shined the brightest when he performs weasels and weirdos who lurk within the shadows, however “Highway Home” is his most dedicated try at enjoying a standard ’80s macho man. Dalton is able to unspeakable brutality, however he additionally fires off quippy jokes and makes use of his intensive data of human anatomy to supply medical recommendation to anybody he beats up. The actor is predictably wonderful on the brooding violence however right here lacks the charisma to promote lots of his character’s Marvel-style one-liners. Whereas a few of his goofier moments assist develop Dalton as a well-intentioned health club rat with minimal social expertise, others fall sufferer to the identical awkward juxtaposition of masculine actions and Muppet-like vocals that plague so many Patrick Mahomes press conferences.
McGregor, however, steals each scene he’s in. It’s unclear how a lot of what he does is definitely performing, as he merely performs a rowdy and charismatic Irishman who likes to hit folks and showcase his ridiculous tattoos. However his first performing function (the tip credit cheekily say “Introducing Conor McGregor”) may set up him as his technology’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, an inimitable sports activities determine whose very existence is exclusive sufficient to justify plopping him into numerous blockbusters.
All in all, this “Highway Home” is a becoming replace to its predecessor’s legacy. Not as a result of it’s higher, and even as a result of it’s all that related, however as a result of it strikes with the identical unselfconscious stupidity that fueled so lots of the ’80s blockbusters we bear in mind so fondly. Glass Key isn’t Missouri, and Gyllenhaal isn’t Patrick Swayze, however anybody who streams it could benefit from the recollections of an easier time once we went out to observe these varieties of flicks in theaters.
Grade: B-
“Highway Home” premiered at SXSW 2024. It would stream solely on Prime Video starting on Thursday, March 21.
