Road House (2024)

At a Bloomberg corporate picnic near the beginning of our relationship, my partner and I were perched on a hill, looking down at the proceedings. There was the petting farm with goats and alpacas, several open drinks stations and food stations. They'd rented Randalls Island for the day. From that perch on the hill, we watched a paramedic walk across the field, summoned somewhere by someone. He walked with his shoulders perched slightly forward, dragging his arms behind him in a swinging motion, a little hop to his step.

I haven't seen that walk portrayed on film until Conor in this one. It is as silly as I remember it. His performance is so over the top, it disorients the joints of the movie. Jake and Conor are not in the same movie. Maybe that's okay, but Jake's character is in such a coma of (he tells us) fear of killing somebody and enjoying it, that he never really conveys much emotion outside of the first scene he beats people up and is concerned about the distance to a nearby hospital. Like a professional, we expect him to gauge his barbarity based on distance to care. That's someone we can root for.

But here comes a tornado of so much huffing and puffing in Conor McGregor's performance, you expect a three little pigs metaphor to tie the whole thing up at the end. At least Jake looks nice in a paisley button-down, so it's not like the whole affair is unsalvageable.