Amazon’s remake of the 1980s classic Road House released earlier this year in March. And while the film failed to hit the heights of the original, that in itself is not a reflection on the movie’s stars, headed by Jake Gyllenhaal and well, Conor McGregor.
It wasn’t also a reflection of the 2024 Road House’s fight scenes, which were in general thrilling to watch on-screen, and were extremely close to the real deal. That in itself is a reflection of the work put in by the stunt coordination team, headed by Garrett Warren.
However, the scenes in general might appear far different if one considers the fact that Warrett himself described the thrilling fight scenes as ‘glorified pillow fights.’
Garrett Warren explains how 2024 Road House’s fight scenes were filmed
Jake Gyllenhaal played the starring role of Dalton, a former UFC fighter who returns to his former world after battling years of depression. The movie featured Conor McGregor, who plays the role of Knox, as Dalton’s archrival, with the climax seeing an epic fistfight break up between the two.
Regardless, the movie’s fight scenes were widely acknowledged as being utterly realistic, even if that notion is not held by stunt coordinator Warren himself: He claimed that the process of shooting them started off with the actors fake-fighting and reacting to the punches they receive However, it eventually develops into a pillow fight, of sorts: (Slash Film)
The next thing you do is, you remove one person from the equation, and you put a pad there. You say to that [remaining] person, ‘Hit this pad as hard as you can.’ And that person lays into it, and hits it with all their might — and it looks awesome.
He added:
Then you remove that person, and you swap. You say to the person (about to be hit), ‘Do not react. Do not try to sell this punch. Just be ready for the character that you are.’ I take this pad — it’s a very soft, square pad — and you jam it at them. You hit them for real. Anybody — a girl, a guy, a child. It doesn’t matter because it’s basically a glorified pillow fight. It’ll look like a UFC fighter getting hit in the face, and trying to keep their composure. It’s wild.
Hence, while there is an arguable lack of integrity in the way the scenes were shot, the results more than made up for the same.
Garrett Warren puts ‘blame’ for groundbreaking technique on director Doug Liman
While there is little doubt that Road House’s fight scenes set the movie apart in the genre itself, Garrett Warren was not particularly willing to resort to the technique described above. The stunt director explained that he saw it as a ‘magic trick,’ and thought that the process would be used only a few times in the movie.
However, the sheer realism of the results meant that Doug Liman had found a way to bring a remarkable element to his movie, even though some may claim that he cheated. Warren explained that the director did not want the scenes to be filmed any other way:
I thought, ‘OK, we’ll do this magic trick once or twice, maybe three times.’ But no, not with Doug. Doug wanted to do it the whole time. The shots were never cut. When you see this movie, the fights are way beyond any fight that has ever been filmed in cinema history. This is something that is groundbreaking.
Of course, one look at the kind of scenes that were featured in Road House, and fans might simply forgive its director.
Road House is available to be streamed on Amazon Prime.
