MMA Fighting - This Is CineMMA | Episode 1 | Road House - Is This The Best MMA Movie Ever?

Episode Date: March 24, 2024

Conor McGregor, Hollywood superstar? On the inaugural episode of This is CineMMA, the MMA Fighting movie review crew takes a long look at the recently released #RoadHouse remake (re-imagining? remix?), which also features Jake Gylenhaal as a disgraced #UFC fighter looking to turn his life around when he gets a job as a bouncer in the Florida Keys. Join Alexander K. Lee, Jed Meshew, and E. Casey Leydon as we give you a blow-by-blow account of the best fight scenes, the most convincing combatants, and the most inspiring martial arts quotes from what some are calling a cinematic masterpiece. How is McGregor as an actor? How is Gylenhaal as a fighter? And how would any of the characters in Road House fare if they actually got a call-up to the UFC? All that, plus we answer the question of where Road House ranks among the greatest MMA-related movies of all time. Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster, The Downloaded.

It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Greetings, folks, friends, and fight fans. Welcome to the debut episode of the latest show on the M.A. Fighting Podcast Network, we call This Is Cinema.

This is your host Alexander Cayley. I am beyond thrilled to be here for what we hope will be the premier podcast when it comes to discussing movies that feature an emphasis on the mixing of the martial arts. That means a focus on films where fighting is essential to the plot, whether it's a story that revolves around professional combat sports, where the principal characters are defined by martial arts background or just a good old-fashioned, rock-em-sock-sock on action romp with a handful of UFC stars sprinkled in. There's plenty of ground to cover. And cover it we shall. Now, with this goal in mind,

I could not possibly ask for a finer, more qualified pair of co-hosts. First, let me introduce an esteemed member of the M.A. Media who is known to never back down, no matter how hot the take. It's your friend and mine. Jedmishu.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're here. We have been talking about this show for so long. I am so excited. I'm mostly excited because A.K. just said never back down, which is the reason for my being. But we'll get to that. Later, you all know why we're here. But before we get to that, back to you, AK,

because we've got one more Truvador on us with us on this journey. I think just looking at us, Jen, and when they look at our other, another co-host, they'll have an idea of why we're here exactly. Joining us, my former Tup Hang co-host, an undefeated fighter and a producer, often concerned to be the best of the best in this crazy industry. It's E. Casey Leiden.

I am so happy you to be here. You know what? here comes to boom baby let's talk about road house we are here that's right we are here to talk about can we slip in a whole bunch of fight movie references i mean they're going to be a different one every week just some warriors out here in the digital a real a real warrior a real jim kata of the man uh e k c line uh yes guys we are here to talk about movies and this week specifically we are here to talk about Road House, the 2024 remake mix.

Reimagining? I'm not sure. I can't remember how they're billing it. It shares the same title of the 1989. They're billing it as retelling. Really? Yeah. Not sure.

I haven't seen the original and I'm not sure that that's accurate. It's not accurate at all. A re-visioning of the 1989, Rowdy, in film starring Patrick Swayze, Kelly Lynch, and of course, Sam Elliott. Playing our punchy protagonist this time around is Academy Award nominee, Jake Gyllenhaal, who takes on the Dalton name. This time he is Elwood Dalton, not James Dalton, the original character. And he takes his shockingly impressed physique from the UFC Octagon all the way to a fictional

island in the Florida Keys. Guy, I didn't know if this wasn't a real place. Glass Key. And it's in Glass Key where he goes to make some quick cash. a friend a charming best of Mithvist and eventually cross-sword with a rogue's gallery, captained by none other than the brutish knox,

aka the notorious Connor McGregor. First things, I got to ask real quick, who here has seen the original? Because I haven't, or if I have, I don't remember any of it. Jed, I don't know if you've watched it. Yes? I watched it. You both have. I have seen the original. I watched it as far as part of my research.

Wait, Casey, was that the first time you watched it was part of your research? you've seen it before? I watched it years ago, but I just had no real memory of it. It's kind of just vague memories of it. So I kind of needed to kind of bring it back. And everything kind of came back once I saw it again. But I actually like the fact that AK didn't watch it. So, because that's more of unique view because I feel like my impressions of the first, the memories of the film can kind of, you know, I don't know, change my expectations for the, for the reimagining of this one. So I'm glad AK hadn't seen it.

I was told to go in fresh. Yeah, I was told to go in fresh. I was instructed going fresh. The original Roadhouse has been staring at me from Amazon Prime, the very streaming network, which is also, of course, promoting and distributing the new roadhouse, but I resisted. And I love Patrick Swayze. I love a lot of the actors involved in that original movie. But, guys, I held back.

I resisted. We should tell people now, with that kind of little synopsis out of the way. Spoilers galore. Guys, spoiler warning going forward. If you have, the movie came out the week that we were recording this. And if you have not seen it yet and you don't want any of this intricate, detailed, topsy-turvy plot spoiled for you, we'll tell you now to go, go watch the movie. Go check it out.

Flip it on. And then, and come back and listen to us. Or if you don't care and you love spoilers and you, and if anything we're saving you from watching the movie, definitely stay tuned in. Jed, I've got to go to you first. Let's get a quick. I don't know how you want to do this. tweet length review, elevator pitch, but just give us a really quick version of your initial thoughts

after watching Roadhouse 2024. You guys want to see what Connor McGregor would look like if you had superpowers? Because that's pretty much the basis of this film for me is what if Connor McGregor was a super villain? And all the hijinks would surround that. So that's my elevator pitch, A.K. It's a strong pitch.

And I think it's how a lot of, lot of people are kind of being sold on this movie. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm only speaking for our fight audience. I have no, guys, I am in the bubble. Like, I just have no grasp of how much the average non-Rumae watching person, like, what their interest in this movie would be. We don't want to delve too much into it.

There is some drama involving, like, the distribution. The director, Doug Lyman, thought it was going to be released, like, you know, in theaters, like a normal action film with this, with a high profile actor like Jake Gyllenhaal. But there was some transfer of studio rights, and so it is only on Amazon Prime. A lot of drama here. Casey, ignoring all that for now, what was your first impression just sort of viewing the film the first time? My first impression is it's a film that knows what it is. It's meant to be fun.

It is just to be a fun action film. And Carmen Greger has one heck of a bottom. man, that man does not skip leg day. Yeah, it was great. It was fantastic. I'm glad you, Casey, I'm glad you mentioned that. Did I spoil it? Is that a spoiler?

No, no. That's the perfect comments for this stage of our show, because, again, as Jed mentioned, we are going to give you our subjective review at some point. Of course, you will really get, you know, bits of our opinion as we discuss the film. But right now, we want to keep things scientific. This is a scientific discussion, again, of six. Cinema. C-I-N-E-M-A, right? As we all know, cinema is spelled. So we are trying to keep in just the facts, just the components of the film, and Connor McGregor's rear end is objectively solid. Solid. I just want to say, I did not think either of those two things that Casey just said. So we're in for a great show because I think he and I may have viewed this film entirely differently. How are you noticing his rear end? I was noticing. the traps.

The man was walking around like a cobra. Every second the camera's on him, he is flexing his traps like this. Like awkwardly, like puffed up like a puffer fish. It's so weird. There was one scene when he, when Connor had the,

or what's his name in the movie? Knox. How can you forget that? When Knox, when Knox had it, when Knox had a look at something to the left, to the left, he goes like this. Yeah.

He is just in this pose at all. points in time. It was so weird. I didn't even notice his ass. Maybe he has a great ass. I was distracted by the traps. So you're a trap, you're a trap man.

I'm an ass man. That's all, that's all. We're finding out so much about each other. By the way, by the way, let's make it clearer on the show. We've only just begun. We've only just begun.

Let's make clear on the show, by the way, that when we're going to be watching several martial arts-related films that feature like UFC actors, mixed martial artists. And I feel it's fair game for us to just call them by their real life. Like if you want to refer to Connor McGregor as Knox in this film, have bad. I will probably be calling him Connor several times. We will be watching movies later with like Randy Couture in it, Chuck Liddell.

Listen, I can't be bothered to remember that Chuck Liddell's name is like, oh, Sergeant Troy Hendricks or whatever. No, I'll just be calling him Chuck. I'll be calling him Chuck in these movies. I think we all will. So Knox, Connor, whatever you want to do. That's how we're going to rule. Guys, let's get back to the science a little bit here. We plan to lead off.

The structure will be a little different every week. But I think almost every episode we have to lead off with the first, most important, and probably most grammatically incorrect question of the show. How much MMA, guys? How much MMA is the movie? So we went back and forth in our plan. planning for this about what kind of system is here. Do you give it a letter gray?

Do you give it one to ten? I think we settled on appropriately a belt system. We don't need to delve into exactly like the range of belts, but I think most fight fans feel. You know, white belt is probably pretty low end. It means this movie we're discussing doesn't have

too much mixed martial arts content. And if you're a black belt, then we're talking about a movie that is like primarily about fighting very likely about a fighting tournament. It is about professional combat sports. So that would be a black belt film. I'm very interested to hear how you guys classified Roadhouse, because I don't think we're going to be on the same page as this one.

Jed, do you want to go first? What belts do you award Roadhouse for its martial arts acumen? I gave it a brown belt. I don't think it rises to the level of black belt because this is not a – this really is not a movie about MMA. I'm honestly not entirely sure what the film is about. We'll get into that. It's one of my quibbles with the film in general is what is its purpose.

But its purpose is pretty clearly not MMA. That being said, the primary theme of it is MMA. Dalton, the Jake Jalenhall main character, I think his name is James Dalton, but maybe it's Elwood. It's Elwood, Dalton. James Dalton is the original Dalton. Elwood Dalton is a former UFC fighter. Connor McGregor is the heavy in this film. There are multiple fight scenes where honestly less MMA moves are involved than I would have thought, but still some of that.

So there's MMA running all through it, but I don't, if you swapped that out, it wouldn't change the movie. If Elwood Dalton was a glory kickboxer, it wouldn't fundamentally change this film in any way. So I don't think it can rise to the level of black belt, but because it is so part of the narrative, both in and outside of the film, right? It is part of the in-film narrative, the dietic narrative, and the non-diogetic narrative of, hey, this is Connor McGregor acting. So I gave it a brown belt. Kate, I don't agree.

I don't agree. But I want to go to see if Casey is with you first, and then I may have to defend my position against the both of you. So Casey, did you go as high as brown belt for this one? No, I demoted it. I'm giving it a one-stripe purple belt. mostly because of the fight scenes. The fight scenes just didn't have enough mixing in the martial arts for me to give it anything higher than Purple Belt.

The fact that obviously Elwood comes from the UFC, his backstory is a UFC fighter. We'll get to that later. But after that, all the fight scenes, like Jed said, he could have been a kickback. He could have been a boxer. It was more just, you know, just throwing haymakers and a lot of judo tosses and things like that. There was very, I think I saw maybe two actual MMA, sorry, jiu-jitsu or grapani moves. A little bit of wrestling, but overall, it was heavy on the hands. So a lot of good knees, not a lot of good knees, actually.

So a little bit, no elbows. Excuse me, sir. You saw Connor McGregor shoot the cleanest double of his life in this film. A couple of times. A couple of times. Like, just, I mean, talk about. He's not his turn in the corner, the lift and drive through to truck Dalton off the steps of the roadhouse into the parking lot. That's the cleanest double that man's ever going to get.

But then did he let him up? Did they continue with the ground fighting? I mean, I saw no Imminari rolls. I saw no hillhooks and nothing. If your cage of Blackboard level is how many Iminari rolls are in the middle? Oh, dude. There are no Black Roll movies. If, if Dalton were like on that boat, when I gone for Eminari roll and just snout,

The actor dude's knee. That'll be like, oh, okay, brown belt, yeah. I'm just, hey. No, that's what an Eminari roll gets you a brown belt. Okay. So I have high standards. I am mostly with you. I think I'll think I'll go purple belts no stripe.

Oh, I could not go. Yeah, I could not go. So while, so I agree. There's clearly MMA content. It is essential to the main character's background. As we've said, he's a disgraced. UFC fighter and who has now been reduced

to playing bouncer at the Roadhouse. But he's really the only MMA character. There's kind of some bare-knuckle boxing in there as well. We've got, I think his name's Carter. Carter something played by... It's just an offshoot. Yeah, we'll just call him post-Malone.

Post-Ballone is in any of this movie. Yes, and he's doing some sort of bare-knuckle boxing, it appears. But we really only have one character who is explicitly from an M.A. background. You can draw your conclusions about Connor McGregor's character Knox. Clearly he is a UFC star

in real life, but we don't know if he's actually like this formally trained fighter. He seems quite rough around the edges, a bit of a street brawler. So I think this film really only has one MMA fighter. So I'm setting my criteria now. I think I'm saving my black belt and higher award for movies that have more than

one professional fighter character. So I don't know. I don't know if people will agree with this, but oh, Jack, you want to disrespect. The disrespect to Jacks Harris, aka J. Huron, UFC middleweight champion, as if he is not a character in the film. That's the next thing I was going to bring up is there is also an actual UFC fight in the movie, and we kind of get it in pieces.

I thought this was a smart idea, by the way, that we didn't just get one big flashback scene. We get several sort of traumatic dreams, flashbacks for Jake Jell and Hall's character. Boat dreams, boat dreams. Fucking boat dreams. Quote, quote, quote, spoiler.

Boat dreams, yeah. Fucking great line. I hope that was improvised because that was fantastic. I can't stand when I have a fucking boat dream. I'll tell you that right now. But yes. I guess. To give a little more, to give a little more of the plot.

And we have to talk about these flashback scenes more, but I don't want to dive into it now. He has disgraced for punching an opponent after having knocked him out. The opponent played by, of course, Che Heron. And that is apparently his last G. He was clearly. either, you know, released, fire, disgrace. He cannot go into professional fighting anymore.

But that scene is actually, like, it's actually pretty short. I think if you add up all the times, like if you spliced all the scenes together, it's like not longer than maybe 90 seconds of UFC fight footage. So again, that kind of takes away from the amount of MMA is in this movie. And Casey, I think the most important thing you mentioned, there's just not that many MMA moves.

The blast double is great. But that's, listen, to the naked eye, that's a tackle. That's a tackle that we see in nine out of ten action films, one character versus another. The technique is definitely more advanced than that. I do think you're right. I do think there was an intention to show,

oh, this guy knows how to do a real property. This is not a blind running football tackle. This is a double leg. This is a blast double. But it's not quite enough for me. If he went chain the takedowns at once, you know, he's gone for a single, then he gets stuffed,

then he goes for the double, then he switches to hike rods, you know. I'll be like, oh. That would be. It's not Knox's fault. It's not Knox's fault. They don't allow golf clubs in the Octagon, okay? This is absolute nonsense for y'all.

There's also a classic rear naked choke in there. But again, that is literally every action movie. Especially today, I think you'll see. This is in my notes. I have a whole ton of notes as we get into stuff. But look, say what you will, there are a lot of critiques, criticisms. The RNC scene is like the one time. I've ever seen in any movie where somebody gets out of that legitimately and not just like,

I'm going to run him into the wall and he will magically let go of my neck. He gets his hip down to the mat, gets out and gets like out an actual BJJ escape. I don't know what. Oh, that's untrue. I'm very clear what parts of this film Connor contributed. Am I? I assume that he was part of that. I have no, there is no way Elwood did not throw those hooks.

I don't know why he didn't put his hooks in. They're right there for him to put the hook. in and he just chose not to. It makes no sense. He had the hooks in. He had the hook. He did, but he lost the under, he lost the underhook, which is the hook that matters. Having the overhook doesn't matter. He lost the one on the ground.

Connor got his hip down, got out and escaped. That was good BJJ. It was good fighting. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Again, I think, so we're between purple and brown. None of us thought this was a black belt and the movie as far as actual martial arts content. If we were to do it, if we were to do a strict yes or no answer and someone ask me, is this a martial arts film?

I would firmly say no. A martial arts film? Yes. Well, yeah, martial arts film I would say no, but is it a U.S. Like, is it an MMA film? I would firmly say yes. Interesting. That's the thing.

I mean, there were scenes in the octagon, so I would say yes. Yeah. Also, more importantly, and this gets back to like, I think I'm going to hit on this point a lot through this show, right? genuinely, to the best of my reckoning, I'll just ask you, what is the point of this film? Because to me, the point of this film as I watched it and as I rewatch part of it today as well, before we did this, this movie is a vehicle for Connor McGregor.

Now, that has, we'll talk about whether that's a good idea or bad idea, but like the purpose of this film is Connor McGregor as far as my viewing experience really came down to, which I think just fundamentally makes it an MMA movie. And like, that's, that's why I'm at Brown. Like I, oh, if you, if you pull Connor out of this movie, I just don't know that it's, certainly we wouldn't be doing a show about it, obviously, but like, we'll talk about his performance. I'm not trying to spoil that part of it.

But if you move him from this film, I don't think this film is meaningful in any significant way. his presence is the part of the movie that that makes it to the extent that it works work and so I think that this is like to me this is the most obvious anime movie like of all time other than Warrior which is explicitly a UFC film whatever now he does not show up in this movie until I want to say a little less than an hour in is my timing off there do you guys remember when do you know that's about right yeah all right and I think that's fun He kind of does a change of pace to the film.

He obviously follows the happy montage. Elwood Dalton is found a home in the roadhouse, and everyone's getting along, and he's training the staff to be better people and be better bouncers and give them self-confidence. And the good times are rolling, and then the Big Bad, or the Big Bad's father anyway, decides that they need to call in some special help.

They call in the mysterious Knox, and he shows up naked as a Jaybird. He has just slept with, I believe, an Italian, man's wife and or daughter, I'm not sure, and, uh, proceeds to parade naked into a marketplace, steal a shirt, just a shirt. Oh, just a blazer. Excuse me. Laser. Just a blazer. Just a blazer. And, uh, and, uh, and it's a kimono. Yes, and very much so. And then set the marketplace on fire and march up. It's quite the intro for the con man. Uh, what did you guys think? Let's try to, you know, we don't have to talk so much about the nudity. I think you had that covered Casey, but generally this character introduction for Knox and really, the

cinematic introduction of one Conner McGregor. I agree a lot with Jed said. This seems to be a coming out party for Conn McGregor has a action star. He was great. He was definitely one of the, yeah, probably, I was probably the better, maybe the best part of the film as far as the supporting characters. Yeah, great intro, great traps, great tush. Yeah, he looked apart. He looked apart and, yeah, it worked. And it's in set, too, congratulations to him and his agent for picking a role where basically he's just playing a slightly exaggerated version of himself.

So the acting, he didn't really have to expand his acting chops, but, you know, you still have to act, and he did a great job. It was, there wasn't a scene where I felt I was, I'm not, not bored, but I felt like, oh, this is Connor McGregor acting like a like a thug. or whatever, you know, it was great. Jed, thoughts on the introduction in particular. You didn't seem to have a lot of say about Conner's backside before, but if you'd like to wax poetic on that now, go ahead and just again, the general introduction of the character and how he was utilized. This is what I'm here for.

I'm excited for this. Please. The buildup of this film, like when I saw that Doug Lyman was directing this, I got a lot of respect for Doug Lyman, right? I would not say that Doug Blyman has made masterpieces in his career, but they have all been fun. I mean, the born identity is, I guess, arguably a masterpiece. But Mr. Mrs. Smith is fun, jumper, edge of tomorrow. Like, those are fun, weird movies.

And I was like, okay, this is definitely going to be weird. Jake Gyllenhaal, super weird guy. We're going to talk about Jake Gyllenhaal being weird in this movie. And I was like, Connor can come in and I've seen enough of Connor do commercial acting that this can work. and this probably won't be good, but it will be fun. Everyone this week has told me in various, the people who've already seen it, people I respect, trust, and know, Conner's the best part of this movie. I think Conner's objectively the worst part of this film.

And the movie gets substantially worse once he appears. I truly don't know what I was watching that other people were not. I thought he was awful, and it was real tough. Because there were moments where he's not, right? There were glimpses. The intro, the exit, which we could talk about later, those were, I'm not going to say this a lot about this film. Those were well-written sets, right?

Like, here is our introduction to the heavy. That's who Connor is going to be. That is actually a pretty good, well-written scene to create a heavy for this, for a sort of campy B-movie, S, like, oh, this will be a fun guy if he could pull this off. and then Connor just can't quite get there for a number of reasons. I got a whole host of issues with other parts. But like that scene is, I would say,

objectively his best scene but for one line delivery later. And it's still, I watched it was like, oh man, if they had somebody better in this role, this would be awesome. And instead it's just okay. As at some point,

like I don't know how deep we want to get into Connor's performance. It's all bad. as far as I'm concerned, basically. And they have to go back and dub almost all of his lines. Like, I don't know if you guys noticed that while watching it, but most of the stuff he said was not like his live filming stuff. He went back and did it in post because it is all over the place of the sound not quite being right. And it's distracting and it's part of this, which is objectively, like I said,

like a really fun little scene, a really fun intro. and he can't get it over the line because, I mean, it's not to blame him. He's not an actor. But I did not think he worked in this movie. I think from the outset, I was like, this might be tough. It got a lot worse as it continued on,

and he just never landed the role. Yeah, I'm a lot with you, Jet. Maybe it's because people built it up. I thought the one thing I wrote, because I knew I was going to have a lot of thoughts on it, I didn't want to get too jumbled, was, and you probably don't actually agree with this. He's just okay.

And maybe I wrote that not by the end of the movie, maybe in the initial performance when I was still kind of riding off the high of what was like, I thought of, again, a pretty strong introduction. He's got a good physical presence, which is not surprising. But this is definitely a role where it both benefits and is hurt by the fact that it's Conradger. It benefits because

we're giving him the benefit of the doubt. We're kind of like, it's his first movie. At least he's kind of being Connor, which is all he needs to be. But But on the other hand, it's like, if this role was some other, that's what you didn't know who Connor McGregor was and you just, this was just some random actor, you would very much be like, who the hell is this person? How did they get this role? Because they're not good.

They're not good. He doesn't have enough natural charisma to just be carried by that. I know we consider him to be one of the better talkers in MMA, one of the more memorable quotes. but you still have to bring some sort of actual charisma to acting, even if it's just reading, even if you're not capturing the emotion. Okay, maybe it's whatever, you don't expect to have capture the emotions of it. The script isn't great. But if you have charisma, you can take dialogue and make it, you know, more compelling than this.

He's not very good at it. You're right, the ADR, the automated dialogue replacement is very noticeable. It's very noticeable. And for people who are asking, oh, what the hell is ADR? The dubbing, which I mean the dubbing, you know, which, so. In that sense, though, I was almost like, it kind of reminded me of an 80s action movie. So at first, it was working for me. I was like, yeah, this is a very 80s action movie type performance.

So maybe that's, if not on purpose, at least it worked out for them. But yes, I do not get the whole, I'm not sure I'm down with the whole. Connor McGregor saved this movie. He's the best part of the movie. I just did not. It was not a good performance at all. Let me say two things to that. Oh, go ahead, Jed.

Go ahead, Jed. Yeah, please. The first is the ADR is the second most noticeable part of the whole film to me. The first is the horrible CGI, which is all over the place and real bad. And then with the stories that came out about stuff happening, it was like, oh, okay, this was all really bad. And also used in places that didn't need to be, we'll get that. I've got notes on that for later. My issue is that this role ostensibly is Connor's be turned up to 11, right?

But it's not. and that's why it fails for me, among many other reasons. You nailed the point that I kind of kept circling back to as I was doing it. Connor McGregor is a very charismatic dude. And in that role, doing those things, all of that charisma is just not there because it's not the kind of charisma Connor has. Connor, when Connor is the least charismatic is when he's being the most insane, like when he's yelling at Josialdo and grabbing the belt.

That's not charismatic. That's him being an asshole. When he is charismatic is when it's something off the cuff of, who the fuck is that guy? Or you'll do nothing. Like those parts of him are charismatic. In defeat, he is very charismatic. I thought there was one instance of this movie that was able,

that was really Connor getting to just be him turned up a little bit to the kind of character performance he always gives. and the rest of it is he is clearly trying to slide into a role that maybe has some hallmarks of what he is notorious for, but it just, it's so badly missed the mark for me. I'll just throw this out right here. I think this film is substantially better.

I mean, for obviously you would agree in general, Jake Gyllenhaal should be Knox. Jake Gyllenhaal is awful as, Dalton too. I want to be real clear about that. And we have a section to talk about that as well. Jake Gyllenhaal would have been so fucking good as Knox and Connor can't get over there for me. And so then it's it's a huge hole in the movie because I honestly thought the movie was decent until he showed up. I think my most disappointing part about the Connor, maybe I oversawed it a bit.

But I was just kind of disappointed in the writing in the sense of Connor that there was no, for as big as a part he had in the movie, because he's essentially the main villain for the whole second half of the movie, there was no real character change. It was the same character. I thought at some point, we're going to get some sort of plot twist

or, I don't know, him and Knox and Dalton would actually team up because they're both hired, they're both just hired him. That's for the sequel. Yeah, the sequel. Yeah. The sequel.

Okay, yeah. Because, I mean, he's just a hired hand. You know, so I was like, oh, maybe Knox doesn't get paid because he's, he's just, just a mercenary. That's all he is. So I was kind of disappointed that there was no real, and there wasn't to me a chance for Knox, Connor McGregor, for his character to develop. And I kind of, I put the blame on the script rather than Connor, if that makes sense.

Yeah, the script is not good. I totally agree. And his parts are really bad. Like his, he is not given anything to work with. To some extent, I am willing to believe that he was not given anything to work with because they saw what they were working with. And we're like, all right, we're going to pair this down to what we think he could do. I just, I think it was a fundamental miss on all aspects for him. But again, he's not an actor. It's so like, it's fine. But you hired it as actor.

And we're seeing it for such a different view as MMA journalist. But as just someone turning on the, turning on watching the movie, he's just an actor. So I wonder, I don't know. It's hard to To me it's hard to give an accurate opinion Because I know who that guy is So yeah But also you casted him

Because you know who he is too Yeah The script is very bad The script is very bad We'll talk about that We'll definitely talk about that more When we get to our sort of subjective review at the end It's not good

And frankly a lot of the actors I feel like they just don't know what to do with it I think Jake Jelenhall is not great in this movie At all either He's quite bad But again, there's not a lot to work with. Daniela Melchior and Jessica Williams, two of the female actors, the leads in the movie, are both wonderfully charming people.

And even they are just kind of reduced to these meaningless characters. And that takes effort to take actors that are that talented and to like make them forgettable. That takes hard work. So not a great script. Jett, did you want to say one more thing before I move on to a little more Jake Gyllenhull talk? So this morning, I was. working out and I always listen to podcasts. I listen to the big pick pod, which had a section on roadhouse. And they all said what I thought immediately, which is like, yeah, Conner's awful on

this. And I think that to Casey's point, it's harder for us to judge. And I feel like a lot of people looking at this were like, yeah, in the context of other MMA acting performances, which are largely all bad, this isn't awful in comparison, right? Like, he is no worse than Gina Corona is in much many things or Randy Gatoris, etc. He is just sort of I was thinking of Randy Gatoria. Let's say he doesn't elevate into like the higher tier of what I think are some good performances.

But he's not like, I think he's the worst part of this movie, but it's not, he is not Chuck Liddell in acting and Chuck Liddell is horrible at acting in that regard. I think that there are just a lot of people who are grading it on the curve of Connor the MMA fighter, which I think is fine. Like you're coming from this space, you know, that that's how you're, That's the lens you view it. But I think to your previous point, anyone who has no idea of Connor McGuire is who opens up Amazon Prime and flicks this on, they would just be like, what is this dude doing?

And he is, he is awful because there is, I want to be really clear for all of my criticism of this film. I love bad movies. I think Beekeeper's the best movie of 2024 right now. But there is like just a world of difference between what Connor did in this movie and like what Jason Momoa does in Fast 10. And they are both driving at the same thing. But one of them gets there. And so it's like can't be ridiculous fun.

And the other one gets there. And I'm like, I can see the seams. And it is very disassociating. Defenders in cybersecurity are always there when we need. them. They should get a parade every time they block a novel threat and have streets, sandwiches, and babies named in their honor. But most of all, they deserve AI cybersecurity that can stop novel threats before they become breaches across email, clouds, networks, and more. DarkTrace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve and the one they need to defend beyond.

Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information. Saving and investing well is an art. and a science. It requires high-level math, an intimate knowledge of economic history and theory, and a healthy dose of psychology. People have spent their whole careers and won Nobel Prizes, trying to figure out the best ways to do it. Betterment believes that you should be able to be a successful and sophisticated investor without having to get a PhD. They've spent over a decade creating and refining a platform that can help people who have, you know, lives invest like experts. And it's all because they have a simple mission to make powerful investing tools available to everyone.

Their approach, which includes things like goals-based investing, globally diversified portfolios, and tax-smart technology, is rooted in deep research but packaged in a single, easy-to-understand user-friendly platform. With automation, friendly reminders, and best-in-class customer service, Betterment makes it easy to make good investment decisions. You don't need a Nobel Prize to be a great investor. All you need is Betterment. Go to Betterment.com to learn more. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-M-E-N-T-T-com. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed. Yes, I think we're all a little bit lower

on cinematic debut than some of our peers or some of people who have praised the film. But we don't want to delve to, I mean, we've dealt with quite a bit of acting. So let's go on to, again, kind of the point of this podcast, we want to talk about the martial arts. So we don't need to go into again I thought Jake Chilinhal's performance

Acting-wise pretty bad But as a fighter As a fighter though I thought Jake Cholin-Hall was pretty good The body language was never quite there I never quite felt like Oh this is a guy who was lived in the world of fighting This is a real fighter I did feel like

Okay Jake Chilin-Hall is acting like a tough guy I did get that a little bit He certainly looked apart I believe he reportedly ballooned up to 185 pounds-ish, so like the middleweight range to get, and it shredded, a shredded, a shred. I say ballooned up, I mean, muscled, you know, muscled up. It shredded 185 pounds for this role. So he certainly looks the part.

He's likable. And again, I thought he performed well in the fight scenes from what we could see. There is a lot of computer graphics. There is a lot of quick cuts. There is a lot of, you know, hiding of what's actually going on in the fight scenes. But I believed, the parts where it's clearly Jake, I believed him as someone who could get into a scrap and take care of himself. So I am giving Jake a slight, like, a slight thumbs,

maybe not all the way up, but definitely tilted upwards as far as his fighting performance. Casey, I don't know. Were you convinced? Did you feel like, did you believe him? I believe him has a professional high-level fighter in that sense. I mean, did just that and also just did you enjoy watching him fight? Did you enjoy watching him play a fighter?

Physic, from a physical and choreography standpoint. Yes. know, there's, I guess we're talking about this later, but like, I enjoyed actually when there was some humor in the fighting, like when he initially comes out and talks to the, when he first runs into the goons in the parking lot, you know, and he, right before he's about the fight, he asked them, you know, it was like, like, does everyone have health insurance here? You have good dental? Where's the closest hospital?

20 minutes? Yeah, 25 minutes. That stuff was, I think that was actually the best part of the movie, the best part of Dalton, that kind of comedic relief before the fight or even like when the big end scene when he's fighting Knox and he gets his head slammed against the piano. He's like, hey, this piano's out of tune. You know, I like those kind of, that's why I felt the movie was at its best. And I think, that's where I think Jake was at his best as an actor.

But overall, I was kind of, I wasn't blown away, but I wasn't like, this sucks either. I was just kind of like, all right, you know, he got a paycheck, I guess. You want it a little bit To dip a little further into absurdity And I think that's another issue All of us have with this movie The tone is all over the place I think we'll talk about that later

But the tone was the biggest issue Like there was the comedic parts But like if it were just gone all in on that Cool But then we kind of do that But then we also deal with the The real fact that You know, real quick

Did he kill Jay Huron? I was confused Or did he just hit him late? Oh Is it the first death in the octagon? Is that what happened? he either died or was like paralyzed or ended his career. They don't say explicitly, but clearly did something irrevocably bad.

Okay. The assumption is, the assumption is. They don't say he fell up. He died? I did not assume death. I assumed he like paralyzed. Or some serious sort of like injury. Yeah.

So it was weird to kind of set that tone of violence can, can kill someone, like in, I don't know, in this unregulated sense. And then also kind of have this comedic. I get my head slammed on a piano. Hey, this piano's at a tune, L-O-L. I don't know. So the tone was just off for a lot, for me in a lot of ways. It's a very tricky tightrope that I do not think this film walked for at all in any graceful way.

Jed, but let's again, back to Jake. Specifically, Jake, is he a good fighter? It's tough. Yes and no. I think the slap fight, which is what I dubbed the first real fight of, of the movie. I thought that's among the best parts of the film. It is...

The parking lot fight at the beginning? Yeah, exactly. The slap site where you just slaps them around a bunch. Yeah, yeah, that was good. The power slap advertisement. The power slap advertisement. You can see where they're trying to get to with that sort of a fight. And it is good.

It's a fight I've never seen before. I always love when you can show me something I've never seen before, particularly in a fight scene. It was some like that. that is where Jillenhall's charisma can kind of come out and do most of its best work and I thought that he is credible in that

I don't I like you like you I think you've said this AK he didn't quite carry it right like and that's a real small nitpick he he carried himself as a dude who is fit and large and not like a dude who has been fighting his whole life like you've

if you've been at gyms, you've been around fighters, they do sort of walk a little different. Not Connor McGregor puffed up constantly walking, but just like he didn't quite have that part to it. But obviously he was absolutely jacked. That man was on all the gas and credit to him. And I thought that mostly he pulled off the fight scenes. Frankly, I thought he was much more convincing in that role than Connor was.

And I thought Connor was an okay. physical actor in stages, but one of my major issues with his performance outside of the acting part is I don't think he's a credible heavy. It just didn't. He's small, man. And that's it. Like, I was struck by this part of it, right? Because Patrick Swayze in the original and Sam Elliott, they're not huge dudes. They come off, they work well in what they are, because the way they are fighting fits them. Connor McGregor is straight up fighting like the rock fights in movies. Connor McGregor is 170 pounds.

He is not the rock. And so when he's got five dudes holding him back and he headbutts one and then throws one off the arms, I'm just like, dude, I can see that they are all physically larger than you. This is, unless you are actual Captain America, a super soldier, he was not big enough to play the heavy in the way he played it. And I, again, I don't think that's necessarily a choice that he got to make. I think that's how it was given to him. But like, he shouldn't, it shouldn't have been,

Connor's going to be the heavy bulk up on all the juice and get large and look big. It should have been like, be liith and limber because did anyone ever look at Bruce Lee and be like, that dude can't kick anyone's ass. No, they're like, he's jacked and look at the wiry little bastard. He's beating the shit out of people. Like, that should have been where Connor was. And instead, he was doing the Stephen Seagall, the, like the power superhero and it's super missed the mark in all the bad ways for me

you could have played him up as this really like real street wear and had him fight his way out of that situation that way and I don't know I don't want to get specific but I'm sure there's I could have been gouging eyes he could have been kicking like punching groins like that would have been a little more interesting and certainly I was oh I was okay of Connor overall but actually I do want to point that out too I did actually I thought Jake was a better on-screen fighter than Connor. Right. Yeah. I mean, which I didn't actually I didn't realize I thought that till we were talking about

now. I was like, oh yeah, you're right. And it's and like, because on screen fighting is very different. It's so different. It's acting. Yeah. The man is 5.8. Like, when, when they shoot Tom Cruise, they don't shoot him at a distance in a room

full of eight dudes bigger than him because that's how movie making works. He is 5.8. and I don't care how big he got for the role, he is just not a credible heavy against six three twos. Like, there's a dude in this movie that way outweighs him by probably twice the weight. And like, I don't care that Connor is a good fighter.

Like in real life, that's just not how this interaction would work. And it was so disassociating for me. It was one of my biggest issues is the way they chose to make him fight. When they could have done so many more interesting things, things with him. Let's transition over guys to, we've kind of discussed the different fight scenes and how the guys did in them. So let's look at these fight scenes. Well, who we go? What was y'all's favorite fight scene? I'll say, what was y'all's favorite

fight scene in the movie? Because there were, well, that's what I wanted to get into. Oh, is that? Well, that's what I wanted to get into here. I'm guess. I'm getting into the fight scene thing here. Yeah, yeah. So technically to me, there was only, I mean, really the only two actual fight scenes. I know you guys love the power slapping. Really, it was just the two. Two fights with McGregor, I thought. Some of the other fights are either very brief or not really, like, but I would consider to be traditional fight scenes, like they're action scenes, maybe, but they're not really fights.

So I thought there's really only two. I really thought just his fights with Connor were the two fights. But maybe I'm being too specific here. How many, Casey, what did you classify as fight scenes in this movie? There was the parking lot scene, the original. Yes. The opening fight. Yeah.

Fun scene. The post Malone one, but that doesn't. involved the main characters. Yeah. But I'm not going to count that one. And then the still a fight scene. Yeah, still a fight scene. I thought I actually, I know we're not going to talk very much about that,

but I thought that was pretty weak. To start the movie like that, I was kind of like, the movie did not start good. The movie did not, I don't know, it started weird. But, and then the actual, did they fight on the boat? Oh, they were not fighting on the little, they found the little rubber, the little, they fall on the dingy.

They fought in the dingy. There's a dingy fight scene, and then they kind of went to the actual roadhouse final fight scene. So the question was the question about? That whole fight scene is kind of one fight scene. One, yeah. They go from boat to boat to roadhouse, right? Is that how it works?

Pretty much, yeah. Okay. So my question is what was my favorite fight scene? Yeah, well, no, is how many do you think there? So there was maybe five actual fight scenes in the movie. There were action scenes, like the two. truck scene on the bridge. Yes, there was action. There was action. This is a two-hour movie, by the way. This is a little close to two hours, maybe a little under a little over, but around

the two-hour mark. And it doesn't quite fill it up as much action as I'd like. But yes, what was your favorite fight scene, I guess, Casey? The slap scene in the parking lot. Yeah, because it was creative, like the fact that, because it's, to me, because it established Dalton has such a superior calm fighter in this situation. He's there by himself versus four bad dudes or four or five bad dudes, and he can just knock him out with his hands and also make jokes and then take him to the hospital afterward. Yeah, that was great. I thought that was, when I saw that scene, it's like, oh, we're in for a good movie because

up to then, you know, we had some weird patches and stuff, but I loved it. I loved that fight scene. I thought it was great. I thought it established the goons a little bit. and the world we were in. So that was my favorite bite thing. Jed, do you agree with that? Yeah, the first one.

I think that was, it's one of the best parts of the movie. I think there are a couple of other points of the film that jump out at me as like good things. But everything Casey's head's right, at the end of that scene, I was like, okay, I'm here. It wasn't a strong star, but I thought that there were good signs to the start of it. I was like, okay, I see what they're going for. They maybe I haven't pulled it off, but I see what we're attempting at here. And then that happened. And I was like, oh, they're going to get there.

This is going to be good. And then because everyone had told me, Conner's the best part. I was like, all right, this is going to be what I expected. Kind of can't be fun thing. We don't quite get there. There are some other, all the other fight scenes are frankly forgettable. There are some maybe one or two moments in them of things that are interesting. But they're just generic bar brawls, largely.

but this one stood out. It was clearly, to me, this one just looked like the one they spent the most time on. This was the one most well thought out, most appropriately executed, and just the most successful. And I, again, keep coming back to it.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the best fight scene is when Conner's not in. I quite like the final fight scene in the movie, the climactic fight scene between Knox and... Interesting. Tell us why. So, okay, so I prepared myself, I think early on, the first time Jake,

I don't know if it's Jay, the first time there's a fight, there's actually like sort of a fight in the roadhouse, we kind of get, we understand, okay, there's going to be some CG here, there's going to be some camera trickery,

some very zippy camera trickery to tie things together and to not expose some of the actors is obviously not being fighters, not being stuntmen. I don't want to get to film school here, but okay, so the director of photography for this film

is a man named Henry Bram, A good cinematographer, he works with James Gunn a lot. I know people love James Gunn. So if you watch the last two gardens of Galaxy movies and the suicide squad, the good one, you would have seen his work. And now that I've said that to you, and if I'm sure people see the movies, be like, okay, I kind of got that same vibe. It's very fast camera work, tying things together, trying to hide some of the CG.

The problem is those movies I just mentioned are big budget superhero movies for a more grounded street fighting movie like this, the CG is so ugly and so apparent and you just, it just doesn't look good. And even though that was the case with this final fight scene where there is plenty, again, of weird cuts and CG and hiding of things, I still thought at least like both guys got to show some of their stuff. We'll talk about best moves in the movie in a moment. Both guys got to show their stuff. I felt the tension of the scene. I know again, I know, CG will take that, you know, take that out for a lot of people. I was able to overlook it.

I was able to overlook it. So your mileage will definitely vary when it comes to this final scene. But I thought it was brutal. I felt there were stakes to the fight. I believe both guys were committed. I like the final fight. I thought they landed it. It's not like one of my favorite climactic fight scenes of a movie I'll ever see.

I don't think the final fight sequence was bad. But when you were talking, what stuck out. And I think maybe like, basically, like Casey said earlier, I don't think I realize that this is why I liked it as much as I did until we started talking about it. There's just not any CG in the slap fight. It's a practical fight that happens. Right. And I'm not kidding.

If you guys haven't seen the movie, congrats. I'm super happier with us and you've decided to listen to us talk. It is really bad. And I understand that there are a lot of this happens a lot in films. You get touch-ups. These aren't touchups. Like, there are just clear things that could have been done practically that they just said, Yolo, we're going to do this.

We're not talking about Matrix Revolutions where there's no practical way to get Keanu Reeves to stand sideways on a light pole in the ground and just running kick 800 clones of Mr. Agent Smith or whatever. Like, you can't practically do that. You can practically have a bar. fight. You don't need to do that. And then there are just pieces of it where it's so quick cut, it's so distracting. And that's

I honestly think that's why I like the slap fight so much. It was just, it was well done. It was practical. Practical is just always better. Yeah, I hate to tell people, but I think those I think those Connor Blast doubles were CG enhanced. So maybe the technique wasn't quite as perfect as

we want to give credit to credit. Even if they're not CG enhanced. They're enhanced. They're kind of McGregor in hands if you're catching him a drift. One issue I had with the final fight scene is actually what just motivation in the sense that I didn't really understand as a movie, I have to like have feelings for these characters.

I didn't understand why Knox was cared so much about this. First of all, he murders the son of the boss that hired him. Just ridiculous. Yes. Knox is a psycho. He's a psycho. He's a psycho. Yeah, but like, I... Okay, but do you think he's going to get paid for murdering the boss?

He just murdered. He just murdered the son. I didn't get it. Like, that's why I was always waiting for this twist. Oh, like, Knox secretly is trying to take over the business. He's not just a hinge man. He's actually, because he's not the big boss man. He's just a goon.

He's just a hired hand. That's all he is in this movie. Knox is, he doesn't care about money. He is, he is essentially Anton Sugarwer from... But I didn't get that sent. But there wasn't an assistant. They didn't ever established, like, who he was. Like, does he have a code, you know, or anything like that?

That's kind of funny. Anton Chigurraud in this movie would have been amazing. He was the only person alive who, I granted the film's been out three days who was like, Connor McGregor, Javier Bardem, same. Same, same, same character. Yeah, I guess I had issues to that at the end. Like, I just didn't. Okay.

Because I'm kind of, we've seen enough of Connor and Knox on screen where like, okay, I'm over the novelty of that's Connor McGregor. Now I actually, I need to care about the character. And I just didn't care about the actual character and his motivation from just a film standpoint. It just didn't make sense to me. It was a fun. It was fun action. It was fun.

You know, cool. You know, we're stabbing each other of chairs and stuff. Like the whole, oh, no, the two, whatever and the collar blade, oh, you got stabbed in the collarbone or something. That was cool. It looked violent. But, yeah, I just, um, distort. when there's no story to this action everything just started feeling really hollow

toward the end. I'm less on that. I don't want to know about the motivation. Go ahead, Chad. I was just like the motivation isn't majorly like at this this movie is what it is you know, as far as it is, but I still have to care.

I still have to care because for me but that's the thing. I don't have to care if it's good like do I care that much about like the motivations of John Wick? I do. They killed his dog. Everyone must die. But mostly it's just those are exceptional action set pieces and they rock.

This was just fine. And so like I said, I don't think it was bad. It is just forgettable. Why don't they just kill Alton like Schengad or what? Was it ever explained why did they not just kill this guy? Why is there the constant strong arming? Why is there? They were trying to.

Why don't they not just murder him? Well, the, the son's gun. We just can't kill him like because that would look bad. I think, I think they. Why? I think they're trying to establish, like, we can't have a crime scene or something. Like, we had the cops bought, but we can't buy a murder. I don't know. It wasn't really established.

The whole cop thing is done. Oh, the cop thing was really. Oh, the wrong cop showed up. The wrong cops showed up. The wrong cops showed up. The whole cop things is very stupid. But they didn't kill him because it's a film and there are plot holes. And he has plot armor and that's okay because that's just modern cinema.

I mean, multiple times dudes had guns on him, and then he walked up and got to do the cool 90s action hero. I'm not afraid he pulling that gun because I'm going to break your two fingers. Look, and it does it. Or the shotgun scene on the boat. It's, look, that's not great filmmaking, but that is so ubiquitous at this point in time of movies that I've stopped honestly caring that much about it.

It's like, yeah, that's the old Austin Power's joke. No, I have a gun in my room. I'll go get it. Come back here. Boom. Shoot him. He's dead. No, I got to put him out over and sharp.

That's a problem. That's the problem, though, is this movie never even makes that kind of like joking attempt, like wink, winky. It's never, it's not funny enough to like pull off that kind of absurdity. And like I just give me one line. Like Casey said, maybe I missed it. That, yeah, yeah. We don't want to get other people, too many police involved.

And if we kill this guy, that's what will happen. But then they burn down the girls and the dad's, the bookstore. Yeah. And they say, y'all are asking the wrong. And they say the girl, dad, we're there. Why are we trying to kill Dalton? Dalton isn't the owner of the property they want. And Dalton is Dalton.

They could just go kill her. She doesn't have plot armor and magically the ability to break fingers out of nowhere. Like, they could have killed her. If we're going to start interrogating this on the merits, this is going to be an eight-hour podcast and it's going to be bad. What wowed you the most? What single mover moment wowed you in this film? The best.

Talk about the fighting. Talk about the fighting. My favorite move was a very small thing just in one of maybe the first bar brawl. I don't exactly remember where, but there's just a moment. And I think it's Connor, but it might have been Dalton. Might have been Knox, might have been Dalton, where he just throws a dude over him. who gymnastics flips and then faceplants into the bar like during the the somersault and I was like, oh, that hurt.

That was easily the like the individually coolest thing where I was like, I mean, that's obviously outlandish, but that's the thing. I don't care if things are outlandish if it's cool and it works. If it works in the movie. Yeah. Did it get over? But that one I was, it was like a WWE vaulting him overhead and he does a 360 flip face Lens on edge of the bar.

Yeah, I was like, oh, that was all. Oh, that hurts. Yeah, I was like, that was cool. Not, not, yeah, not something we're likely to see in the octagon or the smart cage anytime soon. Casey, did you enjoy a more traditional martial arts maneuver? The two, one movie that really stuck out to me was in the final fight scene when they flipped over into the bar, bartender area. And then Connor throws two punches. And Dalton slips them and he punches the bottles in each side.

I thought that was cute. It was funny, the glass blows up and everything. Yeah, like little things like that, using the set. And I did like the little scene when we get the introduction to Knox when he comes in the bar. And then he, because one of the running jokes of the film, I think this is the mod's the first film, was the band always playing during the bar fights. No matter what, the band's always playing.

And I like when Connor actually rips open the, the, the, the fence a little bit and kind of sticks his head in there like he's gonna attack the band for a moment but they keep on playing like the guy's playing his base you know doing their jam so I didn't know any the more over the top it was

the better I thought yeah and and that I'm amazing this goes back to this goes back to my other problem though I wanted this over the top because that was the best part of the film but then you kind of but you based a whole story on this kind of UFC fight where he killed someone and this where violence was real

very real and it had serious consequences But then the whole movie is about violence not really having real consequences. You're just kind of punching people up and goes, ow, and they keep going. So I don't know. By the way, let's talk about that UFC scene again real quick because I'm looking at the later sections. I don't know if we can really dig into it that much. And also it has a great movement.

The flying knee in that scene, that that looked pretty good, right? I think that was a pretty well-shot, believable flying knee. I thought it looked all right. Definitely a good choice for a movie, very, very picturesque-looking move. It's a move millions are familiar with if only things to, you know, horse. Jorge Mosvital. So good, good looking move. And then again, in the scene, he clearly knocks Jay Haran out. What's his character's name again? Jet. Jacks Harris. Clearly knocks Jacks Harris out and then does some ground and pound and then a little tomb ground and pound.

And as we say, he either kid straight up kills him or at the very least ends his career, does some sort of severe injury and that he is haunted by for the rest of his life. Chris Tione is the referee in that scene, anyone's wondering, and the way they spliced it together, again, it's hard to say because they never quite plays in sequence, but it looked like Chris a little slow on that stoppage. Did you guys notice that? So my read is that he was slow on the stoppage,

but that he then stopped him, but then Dalton broke free and went for Hussein-Baharis on him. And if we're, if we've decided that this is a podcast, we're going to inspect the credentials of the plot. I would like to know why Elwood Dalton is not in jail because that would be the biggest plot hole to me ever. Not that, oh, well, here's the punishment for killing a dude. You're excommunicated and people, like,

that's some real Dana White punishment. I live forever being known as the guy who murdered someone. Yes. But I actually face no real world repercussions. That's one reason why I don't think he died. One, I don't think he died. Two, I thought the UFC contract. He goes to jail anyway, if he's assaulted like that.

Yeah, he probably, yeah, but that was a lot. We don't know how many years in the past, he probably did go to jail or something, right? That was a lot. He was wearing venom gear. So do the timeline. He was wearing venom gear. So, like, to the time. Wow.

There's only, this has a accurate gauge. I'm saying, I know, we can, I think we can assume. When I was watching this, the whole time I was thinking, one of this was at the apex, would it be the same effect? Yeah. I think we're saying. All I'm saying, guys, is if the UFC fighters, had Elwood Dalton's lawyer, they wouldn't have been settling for 330.

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. That means should be in prison right now. Oh. Too soon. Too soon. Don't U.S. contracts have a clause, though, that if someone, you know, if you die in a fight, that is

just like where all is, you know, forgiven. Yeah, if you die in a fight, not if you die after a fight has been stopped and you break free and physically assault a man to death. Chris Tione. You still get your performance bonus, though. I would hope so. Chris Tione was very slow in his numbers there. He allowed, he allowed,

Tione allowed at least three or four, like, unanswered shots to a clearly unconscious J. Haran in that scene. So if you want to blame Elwood for that very last shot, yeah, that last shot where he breaks away Tion. Of course, he deserves to be playing. I definitely want to blame Elwood for hitting the man. A lot of damage was done before that. And Chris Tion got to get in there.

You see that flying knee hit. I mean, we've seen. Herb Dean would have. would have that fight while while Jake Gyllenhaal was still in midair. So I think Chris Tione I just want to know, I just want to know is out what out was Elwood ever the middleweight champ

because he did win the fight. No. Well, like, I mean, he won the fight. Undeniably won the fight. It wasn't a title. It wasn't a title fight. It wasn't a title fight. It wasn't a title fight.

No. It was for the middleweight title. Did they say that? Yes, they absolutely did. Jay Huron is the middleweight champion of the world in this world. So Elwood, he is, he was the champion. Of course, they stripped them, they stripped them of the belt, but he was the champion. I mean, no.

Or was it a DQ after the fact because you can do that as well. Oh, yeah. You can't get the win and get DQed afterward, right? But there is a split second before that happens where he's a middleweight champion in the world. That was a, listen, that was a successful title defense for J. And he got his win bonus. AK., AK, AK, AK. Even though we got DQed and Duked and Doughton,

murdered him after the fight, do you still put him above in the rankings? Because I would put Dalton above, above Jay Hiron in the rankings. I would have to. No, it's a DQ. This would be a rankings fiasco for us. A ranking. A ranking fiasco. This would be a hell of a major thing.

Let's just make this a rankings pod. Guys, I don't know what to do with this old old old guy. Listen, Jay Haraon may be, Jacks may be dead. But he was putting it on Elwood, all right, before that stoppage. Okay, he was putting it on here. I mean, it was a competitive fight. I'll give you that. It was competitive, but we had a definitive winner.

Tione should stop the fight. I blame Tione, honest. I blame Tione. I don't blame Elwood. Elwood's moving up. Elwood's not. Me, I mean, I still have Johnny Ebblin as number one middleweight in the world, but we're going UFC only.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys remember the I gotta stop this? Do you guys remember the rough footage from the filming of the scene? I do. Yeah.

That was on social media. It's literally Jake Jell's hands are down by his side like ripping the fence as Jay Haran unloves on him. Heymaker after haymaker. I'm like, you probably got to step in there. It's one of the really awful things about, and this isn't just MMA movies,

boxing movies. They've just, they've never, the cinematic way to shoot boxing MMA is not even remotely close to the real. No. It's just not. a cinematic sport. It's the most cinematic sport

in the stories that combat tells, but it's not like baseball and football are deeply cinematic. They're very easy to accurately represent what is happening in the games. MMA and boxing, they're just not because it's too nuanced in

those portions of it. So again, that's part of the stuff that I was expecting. It's fine. I do think this entire conversation leads us into our next category. Do you? I don't know. Well, what were your, hold on. Though I do want to say, okay, so Casey, your favorite move again was the, punching the liquor bottles. Oh, you like that to that sequence.

Jed, you liked the front flip over the shoulders into the bar. That's a really good one. It was dope. It was dope. I like, I think it was Dalton on Knox. I like that he does like a flying side throw thing in the final, but there was some kind of cool throws in the final fight. So I was pretty impressed by that.

Again, I doubt it was him just probably. a blob of computer graphics, but you know what, that blob deserves a round of applause. I say they were pulling that move off. Those kind of nice. Yeah, so our next little bit we do have to touch upon. What was the most realistic moment, guys, and what was the most unrealistic moment in this film? If you want to talk specifically about fights, that's great, but if you want to kind of deviate, especially since there's a lot of different kinds of action in this movie, then by all means.

First, most realistic. What came off as, what rang true? Casey, you go. Go ahead, Casey. For most realistic? Sure. If you don't have one, you can move on, you can just go to move most unrealistic. I mean, I'm just repeating myself.

The most realistic would be the slap beating up four guys. A trained fighter beating up four men with slaps and just a couple tosses. Actually, I would say that was the most realistic. Yeah, for me. Are we going unrealistic? Because I have a strong one for unrealistic. Yeah, go ahead. Give me unrealistic now.

And actually, I had a big issue of this in movie. He gets freaking stabbed of a knife. Correct. It's a knife in your guts. Pain will hurt. That's where your poop is. He opened up. That's bad.

You don't just go, all right. That was just unreal. I just, like, I don't know. You get stabbed in the guts. You are, that's going to mess you up for a very long time. I don't care how tough you are. It's a knife in the guts. I thought I, yeah, you hate great abs, yeah.

But yeah, I was just kind of like, no, you can't, you can't take a knife in the guts and just go, my bad, where the guy. You, you, you lost me 500 bucks. I'm going to stab you. And then like, just, I couldn't. That was too much of a, too much suspension of disbelief. Yeah, it's just too much for me at that moment. Damn. And that was like the first five minutes of the film, too.

That was the first five minutes. It was tough, tough he was. That was one of those things I think was a bit. ridiculous, but I was willing to allow it. I was like, yeah, it's obviously dumb, but like if we're leaning into this, okay, and then they kind of didn't lean into that. And then, like, there were just other parts where Dalton is injured less, but hurts more. I was like, that feels different, but whatever.

And I'm still, honestly, I know we didn't even talk about it. We don't need to talk about it. I'm still confused on the whole, the cop part where he hit the short-term memory, hitting the cop on the head of a log. That just kind of- Oh, that was hilarious. That's a- Because it's a whole- Structurally bad, but okay,

Searable. I was like, are you, are we murdering, are we murdering a crooked cop here? Because cool, whatever. He's a bad cop and he was going to murder a cop, okay. He's framing a crooked cop for murder. And the most unbelievable, like that whole scene, that was weird. That was bad. I feel like you could.

So I want to remind people, this movie's almost two hours long. And at first it's actually moving really well. Like it moves really like he's, like we meet him right at the beginning. We understand he's a badass guy. He needs money. He goes to the roadhouse, blah, blah, all this stuff happens. It moves really well. And then, like, there's all this filler in the middle.

And that scene is so pointless. So I'll recap it real quick. Yes, he's trying to frame a cop. He has killed one of the big bads henchmen. Punched him in the Cherokee. Straight up murder him. Straight up murdered him. And then later, and he carries the body around.

So he keeps the body at cold. In ice. In ice. There's a whole scene of him buying ice. You could cut so much of this out. It is bizarre. And then, yes, he finds the cop who he knows is transporting money for this illicit cash exchange. And then, yes, balk someone that takes him down, balk someone in the head, whatever, and says,

oh, I'm going to, shoots the body, puts four bullets in the body, which has been dead by this point for at least, I don't know, like eight hours or something. There's no any self-respecting police officers or a forensic person. No, that's what the ICE is for, though. The ISIS is fucking up the time of death. Yeah. I think they'd know. Oh, by the way, his tracheo was also shattered.

I have a feeling maybe the gunshot Yeah So there's not gunpowder residue on the cop's hands Obviously none of this past his scrutiny It's no the cop himself says They'll know you shot him and he's like Yeah but it'll confuse them

And I'm like no it won't And then he goes on a whole bit about Ah you know I was a fighter I know how concussion can message the short term memory And then he bongs the cop And then the next scene is then cops finding him And he's like oh I guess that trick didn't work And I'm like what in the hell

The hell was the point of all And then the both of them But he also made the boat go off into nowhere, too? Yeah. So the boat just, what happened to this boat? I don't know. The boat is intentionally destroyed, obviously. Come on, guys.

Keep up. Okay. Well, it's not a good movie. Where did the dynamite come from? Where did the dynamite come from? I have been trying largely not, they've been trying largely not to like knock this film on the basis of its realism because I think that. that's just part and parcel of something like this. You sign up for that portion of this when you're doing a movie.

And I'm always of the opinion. As long as the things make sense into the world that is built, it's okay. A lot of this doesn't. But again, what are we talking about? As far as my most realistic scene and my least realistic scene, most realistic is really hard because almost all of them are not. But the one thing I will say, And one of the things that I kind of wish, looking at this movie,

I thought that there was a good movie in pieces in there, and it was just very poorly executed across the board. But, like, I think that the backstory of Dalton is a compelling one. And like, because when you don't know who Dalton is, you're like, all right, he's clearly a former UFC fighter. We've gotten a couple of flashbacks. What drives the former UFC fighter to be doing this? And now he's going to this roadhouse out of nowhere.

And there's not, like, in the same way, the original set up that Dalton character, a little piecemeal fashion like this, and ultimately you get to the reveal where it is a little, like you can understand his motivations. I thought that that is a good backstory. I don't think they executed a large portions of this well, but when they revealed it, it was like, oh, he killed Jay Huron, who actually was a good friend of his before they had a falling out and fought each other and he snapped and killed him. I was like, oh, I can see how that would like totally fuck you up as a human being. And like, then this is sort of the weird, sad path your life would go

down. That would totally make sense to me. And I thought that that was a good piece that they frankly did not pay off in any meaningful way. But I like that. So I'll put that here. as for unrealistic I mean there are a thousand things the one thing I will say though and this is a bit of me nitpicking plotty stuff right

why is he so good at bouncing like in the original roadhouse Dalton is a world renowned cooler which this is a universe in which people know bouncers slash coolers and are like oh, Dalton's great, except for Wade. Wade's the best, but Dalton's one of the best bouncers in the world.

I got to get him for this. Dalton's just a fighter who somehow has like, he's a UFC dude who now has the preternatural ability to be like, that guy's got a knife under his shirt. When he pulls it out, just take a step back and then punch him in the throat. Like, why is he so good at a very different skill set than just fighting an individual man? That was very dumb to me And so I'll put that here

Chad, do you remember I believe it was Fast 5 when Paul Walker asked Ludacris How did you get so good with all these computers and stuff? And then the answer is simply waved away by Ludacris saying I had a life before you, Brian. And that's it.

And it's never question again. I will say that for this, for Elwood, for Elwood Dalton, that he had a life before the U.S. Because he had a life before the UFC, he had a life before the UFC, and he had a life between the UFC and the events of the beginning of this film. So there's all kinds of training he could have he could have undergone and had success.

But why? If he's so good at this, why isn't he already bouncing? Like, he, that's a good, steady line of work. He doesn't want to fight people. He doesn't want to fight people, Jay. His primary career path after the UFC is to get an unsanctioned bare-knuckle business. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's the trick.

He never fights. he shows up and no one fight. But if they try to fight him, he's going to have to fight. No one does. They never do. But I think I think implication is they never do. That is establishing. And he's making $100.

$500. $500. $500. I think it was like $500. $500. That's what we got staffed for. We've all been to smokers in the Midwest. You're not making $500.

That's enough. You're making drinks at the bar for the night. That's how those events are paid out. He's not doing it. He has. This is a man with a set. of skills and he's not using them because I don't think he had to

his life. He just became the world's greatest bouncer. Jed, he's got fucking boat dreams. All right. Have you ever had boat dreams before? Boat dreams. Because I'll tell you something. It messes with you. You can't make these good career decisions that you're

suggesting, all right? Would this film have been better if it was called boat dreams instead of Roadhouse? Can we? Yes. We need to touch a fun half very quickly that There's a gag early on, which does not land at all, by the way, where this character is like, oh, it's called the roadhouse. Oh, get it?

It's just because it's called the road. I was like, what? Okay, what's the joke? And then she's like, oh, and then by the way, he also named the boat, and it's called the boat. And I'm like, this isn't funny. Nothing about this is funny or compelling in any way. They just threw some dad jokes in there, right?

Right at the beginning of the film. Boating for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo. Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy.

Hey, I won! Feel the fun! The meeting will begin when Passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close you, call 186653310 or visitcomexonterio.ca. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex.

Conditions apply. I genuinely think my biggest issue with the film as a whole is it doesn't, I don't know why it exists. And it doesn't seem to know why it exists. Because there is no, there's literally no reason that I can tell. And please tell me if you guys have a thought here, why it is called the roadhouse other than that bad joke. because in the original, the bar is called the double deuce. And they even make a reference to that.

The supermarket store right next to the glass bookstore is called double deuce. So they do make a knowing reference to this. But there's no reason that that just can't be the double deuce roadhouse. And like, hey, oh, yeah, I've got a roadhouse in the keys. It's called the double deuce. But they actively choose to go away from this. And I feel like they made that choice in a number of points in this film. and it makes the movie so much worse

because to me I don't know why I don't know why this is a remake like this story is not some cutting edge new story they're even self-referential about it's just basically the classic Western trope of guy comes in and cleans up the rotten town like you could just do that

like they've made a thousand different versions of diehard with different names they have made a heat in like eight different times just called it different din of thieves is almost a shot for shot remake of heat and everyone loves it. You could just do that.

You don't have to call this roadhouse, but then to call it roadhouse to know that you are attaching it and to have a couple of vague winks at it, but to really not lean into that and be like, yeah, this is the double deuce. Like, why? I just don't know why that, like, why we're doing any of those things. Another stupid, another stupid joke was the whole, his name is Elwood. And then the, the crooked sheriff was all like, you know that song, a boy named Sue? Well, it's like, what, Sue's a girl's name, Elwood's not a girl.

Elwood is a distinctly masculine name. Yeah. What? My only, my only guess is it. It was like, what? It's just that makes sense. Like, what are we talking about? I've never met a girl named Elwood.

However, is there a chance, guys, that this is a oblique reference to the cinematic classic Legally Blonde. I was about to say, that's legally blonde, right? Yes, the main character is For the Spoon is that Elwood. That is definitely what is happening. here. I did not register that real time, but when you started saying Elwood, Elwood over, I was like, oh, yeah, that's legal blonde, right?

Yeah. And then I Google to make sure I wasn't like crazy. So this is a legally blonde remake. Let's say by some chance that this is a legal blonde reference. Again, why? Why? Why? Why?

I don't know why. So Jed, that was your most unrealistic. Jed, that was your most unrealistic part, right? you that the just his why was he not doing something else with his life and actually no it was just why is he the world's best bouncer when he's never to our knowledge never balanced because in the original that's the whole thing with dalton he is the second best bouncer in the world so cooler not bouncer and so it's like yeah totally makes sense that he's kicks ass at this job she just hired a fighter who like he doesn't come in and just fight dudes he come in and runs the bar i was like what's

What's happening here? Why are you still going to do. And she, remember she was originally wanted to hire Post Malone. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was the whole story. Like, first,

she doesn't know what she's doing. She shouldn't be running a bar. I'm just going to say that. I will also say for unrealistic, there are several things that are like, there's a reference to $25 U.S.C. pay-per-views. That's,

that's not. That's not. That was not. That was unbelievable. I made a note of it. I was like, $25 bucks a pop. That's insane.

insane. There's, when Donald is driving, he does say quid, but I'm sorry. That's still not even close. The pound is functionally the same. When Dalton is driving away from the bar fight, there's just UFC play-by-play broadcast on the radio. Oh, okay. That was awesome.

Hold on. I won't radio broadcast at fights. I had assumed that was boxing. I had assumed it was boxing. It was, it was boxing. Okay. I don't think it was. I thought, I believe that there was, because I was living.

I'm fairly certain there was a line about taking him down. Oh, okay. Well, either way. Because I was like, because when I heard it, I was like, surely this is boxing, right? No, yeah. This can't be M.A. I was like, no, this is MMA. This is so dumb.

Even if it was boxing, what boxing broadcasts are doing radio broadcast now, which is... These days, yeah. I've been wanting... I've been wanting... Yeah, she's in a time machine. I don't know. It was an odd choice. Some of the storytelling choice, just bizarre.

I'll very quickly say, most realistic. I like the explosion. I like when he blew up the boat next to the other boat at the end. And I'm like, I was like, whoa, that's way. And then it played out that way. Like,

he nearly like knocked himself on contest. Yeah, everything was like that. Not an explosion's expert. No, not explosion's expert. So that thought was cool. Oh,

yeah. Like, I like the sinking boat. I like the sinking boat. I like the sinking. No, I thought that was good. I was talking about prior.

When, when Billy Magnuson is like, I've kidnapped the sheriff's daughter, and he's on the boat with me. Like, I'm going to kill her. I promise I'm not going to kill her, but I'm definitely going to kill her. Like having this, like, what is happening right now?

The movie was just didn't make any sense. The last third of the movie just didn't make sense. Oh, okay. The more we're saying this out loud, the more I'm like, God, what was I watching? By the way, shout out to the corrupt sheriff, Big Dick, played by the great Joaquin Dale made, who, dad, I'm sure you'll remember. as the villain from Fast 5. Jason Momoa's father canonically in the Fast Spirit series.

Wait, we go back to Jed talking about why he was obviously a great bouncer, but he was also an weapon, I mean, an explosives expert. Like, you're a user. Whoa, whoa, he was not an expert. He did a remote. He made a remote explosion. I don't, that's difficult. It's not.

I think he was pretty good, you just put a trigger into it and you buy a while. Yeah, it's not that. He was okay. And he didn't even know how to do it properly. Remember, he had to get closer. He had a distance issue. I don't think that that was that. And again, if he was good with explosives,

he wouldn't have put the boat friggin right next to the other boat and he killed himself and everyone on. Why was Joaquin, why was Joaquin Almeadah, the Portuguese sheriff of this Florida key town? I don't know. I was like, you're the, also, I. Very strange. What was his intro scene?

Do you guys remember this? his intro Yeah, I thought it was going to be some... And they blurred his face for the whole time. Yeah. And I'm like, whoa, this is going to be like, yeah. And then it was like, yeah, there's going to be

some big reveal. And then no, they just... Or Sam Elliott. Getting out of the car. Yeah. I was like, oh, it's... What's happening? No.

Why did we choose any of the choices made right here? Very strange. Very strange. Did not understand it. Why are we... The unrealistic thing that bothered me, not the fight scenes,

but men, Elwood Dalton gets bounced around by vehicles a lot randomly in the movie, like just airborne, CG Jim Jill and Hall. The truck would have killed him. That was so weird. Yes, the very first time where he lands in the truck bed instead of just getting straight up, like splattered by the truck driving, reversing into him at high speed. I think later there's a boat too.

I think with a boat, I don't know if he gets hit or like, and he goes flying. It's like, oh, I'm fine. And I'm like, why are we doing this? Why are you doing this in here? Billy Magnuson gets thrown from the boat onto the top of the roadhouse. And he's like, I'm good. You went like 30 feet or something. They're a little weird.

And then he dies because he gets his neck broken by. Yeah. Connor. Not not throwing up a boat. All right. Yeah. The category here, that's going to be a little more straightforward, I think, when we get some other movies for this one.

And the category is, who would actually win in a real fight? Now, this works better, I think, when we're doing a martial arts movie. And we're talking about two actors who are not, you know, UFC fighters cast in a role, because I think we all know if Jake Jellon Hall and Connor McGregor fought probably would not go well for the Jake Man. So more importantly for this movie, we wanted to ask, let's say, let's say Dalton did not murder Jay Harrod. I still not convinced that he actually murdered him.

How would he do in the UFC post-roadhouse? Do you guys feel he learned something from his roadhouse adventure and that maybe he'd get another shot at the middleweight title? And this time, this time win at all. Jed, what do you think? So I have three things that I'd like to say in this category, and then I'll throw it away. The first is, Dalton, I think Dolan could do well. He's kind of a DDP-esque figure, except for he does have the superpower of being invincible.

So if he can't feel any pain, I mean, Cheeto Vera just got a title fight. You got thumped up, but like, you're going to be in a lot of fights by simply being impossible to knock out. So he, you know, I mean, one, he was the middleweight champion of the world, however briefly that was. So I think he could do okay, certainly. On the other side of this, I also did, it was like Knox instead of Connor McGregor, Knox. We don't know Knox's pedigree. But, I mean, we're talking about going toe to toe and more than holding your own with a man who at one time was the undisputed UFC middleweight champion, even if it was for mere moments. So, you know, if this guy has a background, great.

If not, he's natural talent. Just get him in there. He can clearly sell the show. He'd do quite well. And then I also, just for the sake of it, I wanted to make sure we give a little bit of shout out here to my man Lucas Gage, aka Billy the Bouncer, because that guy, that's the dark horse of the whole thing, boys. Billy is in there.

Billy's learning how to fight in there. Don't look at Billy one time. says that guy's got a knife under his shirt, he pulls it out, swipes out, you take a step back, punch him in the throat. Billy executes immediately. This is a Francis Ngano-like performance of learning something backstage, executing in the octagon moments later. This man is coachable.

He is young. He is athletic and talented. Give me six months of training with this dude, and we're taking him right to the top. I did not see that coming. I was not particularly impressed by Billy. He got felled by one golf club to the rib cage. And I don't know. It's a golf club.

To the rib cage. I mean, that should be training. That's standard training in the future. Man, it's coachable. The ribs from a golf club. He can't take his coachable. Is he tough? Is he tough, though?

I was actually more impressed. I liked Post-Ballone. I actually thought Carter Ford. I thought Carter Ford. That's who impressed you, Postman. Listen. He wouldn't even fight. He wouldn't even fight Dalton.

What are you talking about? Because he fought, you know why? Because Dalton's a cheater. Carter had taken out six guys off you. He fought six guys before Dalton stepped up. He had a fresh Carter forward. Let me see what happens. Carter can we talk about how,

what a bad system that is, by the way, to win the 500 bucks. You have to fight eight dudes. That seems tough. But suddenly. Suddenly Dalton gets to. win it because you don't fight him after already beating six dudes up. It doesn't seem reasonable to me. It was not a fair system.

So that's why I like Carter Ford. On the other hand, that also makes me sound like, and he's definitely a UFC guy because they would love a guy who's like, oh, you're willing to fight six straight times in a row. For 500 bucks? No, it's not even guaranteed. It's not even guaranteed. He's scared to five. Yeah, he's immediate signing.

Yeah, yeah. He's scared to compete. Billy's not scared to compete. Give me Billy any day of the week. This is an easy one then. We've had a lot of critiques. What would you have changed to make it more believable, make it better? We can get right to casting, too.

Casting is part of this. If you want to get right into the casting solution edit, which I feel like you have some thoughts about that, you already suggest one, making Jake Gyllenhaal, the Knox character and maybe finding a different lead to play Dalton. What else you got? Yeah, my three things that I would change. I mean, I would change wholesale stuff.

The biggest one to me is casting. I think everybody in this, movie except for Billy Magnuson and Arturo Castro are miscast, basically. Arturo Castro is the henchman who, he's a guy who was in Narco. He's been a couple of things. I've seen him. He's the affable henchman who gets his arm broken and then just kind of exit. Oh, he's great.

He's so funny. I thought he was one of the good parts of the movie. Yeah. I thought he was Mike Bonn. I thought Mike Bonn was a Hispanic man? I thought he looked I thought he was Moe we can

Mike Bonn if you're out there I thought that was you in Roadhouse Mike Bonn I don't think you look anything like Arturo I will I will tweet about this later okay

sure him and Billy Magason were the two Billy Magistin played Ben Brandt the I guess the bad guy but not really

the bad guy of the movie is pretty clearly Connor he Billy Macxton is the only dude in this movie who I think understood the movie he was in, which is Sloky B movie nonsense because his whole Uvra was that and he does that really well. I think I would love to watch this movie with Jillen Hall as Knox.

I think it would just work so much better because Jillen Hall, Jillen Hall is too shit-eating. Like that was my huge issue with his performance. He has such a smugness. to his charisma. And it is charismatic. You were drawn to him, but it's not like,

you haven't seen the original A.K., but Patrick Swayze's charisma, you have seen other movies. There's not a hint of smugness. I'm not saying this needs to be a shot-for-shot remake of that movie, but to be this kind of character carrying the center and the emotional center,

there being like a smug shud-hittingness to it is like, actually, that would just work so much better as Knox as the smug shit eating heavy who we kind of would like to hate to like. It just would have, and he can get to be weird because that's the other thing.

Jake Jonholl likes to do weird stuff and that kind of doesn't work when you're carrying what is ostensibly a not weird movie. And so I think he was just deeply miscast as basically was the rest of this film. I don't, I honestly don't know who I would put in the Dalton role, though.

It's hard to like, think of a dude for that to play that as well. What about you go? Rousie, Rousie and Jillenhall. I don't think you can do that. You could do like Hemsworth. Like has,

but his, again, he's a little smirking charisma too, though he can dial that back a little bit more, I think. I did think while watching this, I was like, I kind of wish we'd gotten the Rousey version.

I think the Rousy version would have been a wholesale worst movie because she is a worse actor than Connor is. But I think it might have been so bad that it would have leaned into good, whereas this movie was doing enough holding on to the good parts of it

to just be a bad movie, which is one of my other things that, like my other biggest criticism, if I could change anything other than the casting, if I could just go in and give Doug Limeon notes, I've been like, hey man, this is a Roadhouse movie. Let's be a Roadhouse movie.

Like call back to Roadhouse. They had certain homages and certain things. things are like, oh, that's that's the this character from the former movie. But the fact that in this film, there is, there is not the line uttered, I used to fuck guys like you in prison is a travesty. That's the most like notable line from the original movie. And there's no, like Connor could have delivered the shit out of that line. There's no reason that Connor didn't get, I used to fuck guys like you in prison.

And one, that actually gives us more backstory than we got for Connor's character. time basically on one line. Pain don't hurt. That was an easy line to throw in that they should have put in. And I, the whole movie, I was like, here's what's going to happen. At the end of it, Connor's going to get dead and he's going to get dead because Dalton's going to rip out his trachea because that's what Dalton does in the original. I was like, he's going to rip out his trachea.

And it's going to be like, oh, shitty, did it? You see the original? Yeah. And then no, that's not what happens at all. And I guess they call back to it with the broken trachea punch. But it's so weak. Like just know your audience. And if this is a roadhouse movie, be a roadhouse movie and lean into those parts of it.

Have Connor McGregor stare Dalton down when he's being held back by five dudes and be like, you'll do fucking none. You'll do fucking none. Like how is none of that in this film? All the joyous parts that were so. obvious to me, I would inject them in and make this movie so much better. We've had a lot of problems with the script. Surely one line jumped out of you guys.

We want to talk best hopefully fighting related quote. Again, this is something we want to find in an MMA movie when we're doing cinema. What line jump? So I likely no one ever wins a fight line. I did not know that was from the original. So I feel like that's disqualified. So what was an original line from this movie, if anything from this movie can be considered original that you guys liked. Casey, did you write one down?

The best line I liked about the distance of the hospital. The 20 minutes. Okay, yes. Yeah, I like the reference. And they missed the best joke of the movie. When Dalton went to the bookstore and he couldn't find the young girl and the cop goes, oh, she went to the hospital. And then he couldn't, and that was the perfect chance to go, It's only 20 minutes away. I didn't think about that, but okay.

That was the great. Again, that's probably something that should have thought it. And by the way, the girl was like, I like how they show her out of the hospital. She's like lightly burned on one cheek. And I'm like, okay, this was a serious. Yeah, no stakes. There are no stakes for the heroes of this. Jed, Jed, what did you like?

What line of scripture touched your heart? So I have a bunch of things. I'm only like written down. because there are honestly some okay lines in here. I'm only going to mention two things. One, and this is just a very brief throwaway, I thought it was truly incredible to have Connor McGregor with the Tupac Thug Life tattoo of Knox, Knox, Knox, Knox,

his name three times. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's what that is? Yeah, it is Knox, Knox, Knox, like Tupac's Thug Life. And he's wearing Knox in a Gold Chain. I was like, that's an incredible bit of artistic work there by the costume director. Tremendous.

But I think there was one line that very clearly jumped out of me as like actually good and what they are trying for. And coincidentally, it's Connor that says it. And I think that this is the one time that Connor really fulfilled his obligation to this film like appropriately and landed it. And it was very simple. It's at the end of the fight between Connor and Dalton first.

And they are, it is after the blast double. and they are standing across from each other outside of the road house. And Connor says to him, there's something wrong with you, me too. And I was like, that's good. Like that is good writing delivered well. And if the rest of the movie was closer to this, because that's not like it's a fun line and it's a line that sort of explains what's happening

without being like, hey, this is a Western. and you're coming into town without being overt, but it is also explaining like, hey, here are the motivations for these two dudes. They're a little bit broken inside, and that's where this is going. So that was the clear choice for me. Yeah, I had that line written down for sure.

Very good line, like I said, good delivery, and it stands out so much amongst the sea of mediocrity. And if there have been more of that in the movie, it would have been elevated considerably. So I like that line a lot. The other one I had was when they're fighting at the little boat. And then he goes, ah, our own little octagon. Who taught you shapes?

And then it's around like, who taught you shapes? That was a funny line. But I think that if we're going fighting related, like there's no, like when we say fighting related, we're trying to find like a, like, again, fast and furious, driving related quote. I live my life a quarter mile at the time. Like that's a driving related quote. So I do think if you're going fighting related, it's the there's something wrong with you, me too. other than, again, the line from the original no one ever wins a fight.

So, so yeah, there was just these flashes, guys, these flashes of inspiration in the sea of nonsense. And the thing about that one, AK, is just like, that to me is what they should have been trying to do with Connor. Connor is a cartoon, but he is not, like, he's not the Knox cartoon. But that line, like, I'm a little bit crazy, and this is who I am.

Like that is the persona Connor has given off for his entire career. Not I'm full-blown insane in a sociopath and I'm driving in a student driver car and drinking eight pineapple or eight drinks out of coconuts and just being a lunatic. Like, no, he's he's not the Joker. And like it was so clearly like he's trying to be Keith Ledger's Joker that that's not it. But he is a little off. And I think that they really should just lean into that because that's why. he delivered that line well because that is his wheelhouse.

I think the rest of it felt like it should be his wheelhouse, but was just demonstrably not to me. Let's move on, guys. It's time for what we're going to call the final fist. This is where we will actually review the movie. By now, I think you guys have some pretty firm idea of what we liked, what we didn't like, what we would have changed. We've kind of gone over it.

So we don't need to give a full-on recap of our thoughts on the movie. I don't know if you guys just do a revolt. Do you want to do a big reveal, drum roll, and then show how many fists we're giving it. Each of us are responsible for up to two fists of ranking. So a movie can get, I guess, a six-fist, I guess would be the top. The rating goes from zero to six. So assuming my hold's up, we can do a trimet.

Yes. Okay. So do you guys want to reveal or do you want to get some final thoughts first? Jed? I think we'll reveal and then we can do it. I think you have to show your rating and then explain yourself. Yeah, I agree. All right.

All right, gentlemen. What do you want? Yeah, I think you count it off to three and then we raise our fists. Put up your, put up your dukes, boys. We're going to go one, two, three. One, two, three, and then I'm going to say fight. This is audio too, guys. Well, we can explain after.

Oh, well, we're going to set up our dukes. I will say how many. I'm going to put them. I'm going to put mine up in Muay style. Okay, one, two, three, and then go on fight. Sure, whatever it works. One, two, three, fight. All right, for those who are listening,

wait, we have a total of one fist. Jen and I, people watching a video might be wondering, Oh, did they mess up their cue, Y or Jedd and AK's fists not up? No, that's intentional. I am not raising a fist. Casey's giving it one. So one fist, it is kind of from E. Casey Leiden.

I did not enjoy this movie. It's a bad movie. It's not so bad. It's funny. It's just boring. The performances are to the little of the script. I mean, it's just, it's bad. It's not interesting.

It's too long. You could easily cut 15, 20, probably 30 minutes of this movie and nothing would be lost. If anything, it would be greatly improved. That's not just this movie. That's a modern movie problem in general. But this movie falls right in line with that. The tone is all over the place. The action, I thought the action actually was pretty good.

But there's not really enough of it. And again, I really enjoyed it a lot because I cared for the character. I cared for Elwood Dalton. cares his his his his wiki uh pass if you don't care about the characters this is going to rough watch if you don't connor it's really going to be a rough watch he's not even that good in it so i'm sorry guys had no fists jett yeah i gave it zero fist because it's not a good movie um if you enjoyed it i think that that's reasonable right i don't think that this is just like argile is a movie that can't be enjoyed it's the worst film i've seen in quite some time madam webb the same

This is certainly not on that tier. And so I almost considered giving it a fist, but since this is new, I didn't really know how to go about it because there are parts of it that are good. But ultimately, it fails across the board. My sort of one-sentence review of this movie is that it's a bad movie that could have been great if you changed almost everything about it. Because it's not that far off, but it is, like Doug, Doug Lyman does have a bit of a history of having, some jumble in his movies and this one really comes to the forefront in ways that I found pretty hard to in take. I thought this movie was really good. No, not really good, but I thought this movie was good in the first phase of it. It was a little dumb, but when Dalton comes to the

roadhouse and it's Jake Gyllenhaal being charismatic with a cast of characters who are quality actors, like they have a pretty good cast in this film, honestly. That part is working. The music in this movie rocks. Like, them just cleaning up the double deuce is, is solid stuff. And then Connor comes in and the tone shifts and it shifts poorly. And again, I honestly don't think that's Connor's fault. I think he's deeply misused in this. And so it's not his fault that the movie comes from being of obvious Roadhouse remake and

quieter but fairly enjoyable for what it is to Fast 18, which is kind of how it is at the end. It's jumbled and awful and bad and the performances aren't great across the board. Most people are miscast and the writing's poor and there's way too much CGI. I'll be honest, I was super disappointed because I went in, I came into this thinking I was going to enjoy it because I like bad movies. I love the beekeeper. I like sort of schlocky nonsense movies and it just couldn't quite get there. Again, it wasn't awful. So maybe it actually deserved a fist. Like it's possible I should have fisted this, right? But do you it's not going to get two? Do you want to change? Yeah, I'm going to retroactively change because I also do think as I'm kind of thinking in the context of other films,

right, that we're going to be doing. A lot of them are going to have similar issues. If I could half a fist, if I had open palm, I think that's where I'd go with it, right? Because there are parts that are good, right? There are parts of this that could have been built better. It's just not executed that well and so it ultimately fails. But also, I didn't have an awful time watching it. I didn't sit there and be like, this movie is the worst movie I've ever seen and I hate it. I was like, this is a little too long and a lot of it's bad. But okay, so a half a fist, if I can give one of those is where I would settle. If you've got two hours, sure, why not? But don't expect greatness.

Oh, I don't know. It's nowhere near the worst movie I've seen in the last probably like two years. It's not, you're right, it's not atrocious, but atrocious almost would have been more interesting than what happened here. I don't know. Casey, that's my issue, AK, is in my judging, I was like, as I was talking through it, I was like, if I give the zero, that feels like, giving it, giving it one feels wrong because there are other movies that I will like better that also get a fist for me, but also giving it zero is going to put it on par with some really bad films. And I don't think it deserves that. So half a fist. Half a fist. Interesting.

Yes, it's hard when we don't quite have a gauge. Casey, justify your, you're pretty quick to give it a fist. What's a, I think of that. Okay, so one fist, only because I want to give a half a fist and I'm being positive, so I'm rounding up, essentially. I'm rounding up to a one fist. Definitely not a two-fist movie. Yeah, just two-fist movie is what I would think, I want my friends to see this.

This one-fifths movie is If you got nothing to do Much like a UFC Apex card Go ahead and watch it, sure You know? I like that And I did have low expectations Maybe this is the difference

To me and Jed I had low expectations coming into this I am actually not a giant fan In the original Roadhouse I granted there are funny lines in it The premise is good You know, Patrick Swayze's Patrick Swayze You know so it's a very nostalgic film

but it wasn't a film and I was like, oh, I love Roadhouse. It was just, you know, a good film I get why people like it. And so I wasn't crazy about the remake and everything. But I sat through two hours. Yes, I had lots of issues with the tone in the movie. The fight scenes didn't necessarily blow me away. If you want cool fight scenes, go watch the raid. Go watch Onbok, you know, for good MMA-ish kind of fight scenes.

But actually what gave me the fist was the comedy in the movie. I thought the tone of the comedy for lots of the movie, especially what's the actor, Arturo Castro. I think it was great. I wish it was more comic comedy in the movie like that. But, yeah, in the end, it was forgettable. But I didn't regret the two hours I put into it.

So that's why it gets one fist for me. That's a good argument. I'm up to a fist. I'm up to a fist. If I didn't have to this podcast, if I did this podcast, I could so see this never having watched this movie. And again, that doesn't mean it's like the worst movie ever.

It just was so profoundly uninteresting. And I don't know, could have used to edit. This movie could have been saved in the editing. I am telling you know what? There's a decent movie in there somewhere, but this isn't that movie. And so I will not give it a fist just based on potential. But two out of six, that's not bad.

And it's certainly more than good enough guy. to put it at the top of what will be our ongoing MMA movie rankings. Yes, I want people to know that one other reason we're doing this show is we want to decide, we want to find out what is the greatest MMA movie of all time. So you've got to just start from,

you can look at other people's list, we could all go like, oh, this is my top five, this is my top five? No, no, no, no. Let's tackle this all together, guys. Come on this journey with us. Let's all watch these movies together and let's go one by one.

Completely blank list. We add one movie every time we do an episode. Right now, we are adding Roadhouse to an empty list. So Roadhouse currently with its two out of six rating is the greatest MMA-related movie of all time. Okay? This will change. We do plan to do, we should tell people we are planning to do a six episode first season.

So this will be a list of six movies by the time we're all set and done over the next few months. And hopefully we'll have some idea up again. Next few weeks. Next few weeks of what. of what makes a great MMA movie, what will it take to take that number one spot and hold on to it? We will see, but we will be adding to the list

next week, guys. Please join us in watching Fight Valley, the 2016 action film of Fight Valley, which you may have heard of. You're probably confusing with some other movies, but this is the one starring, I don't mean that starring, featuring Misha Tate, Chris Cyborg, Amanda Serrano,

Holly Holieholm, and Caitlin Chukagia. Now, Caitlin Sirma... Excuse me, Caitlin... What is her name? Minara. Sirminara. Thank you so much. I apologize, Caitlin.

Caitlin Chiggy, and now Caitlin Surminara. So, star studded. A lot of... We only gave you Connor McGregor, and apparently, supposedly, Michael Chandler, and this week's offering, but next week we'll have plenty of UFC fighters featured in this film.

Thank you everyone for joining us for the first episode. I know it's a little bumpy, guys. It's a little bumpy, as these things are when you're starting off, but I hope that you enjoyed our insights. I hope that you I hope you guys had a better time watching Roadhouse than I did

and I look forward to discussing more MMA movies with you all in the future remember this is cinema guys there's no wrong answers when you're talking about it and we will see you we will see you down the aisle

next time I can't wait for you to watch the old Roadhouse now oh I should eh I probably should hey you're listening to the Vox Media podcast network okay

Only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.