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Bad Times at the El Royale
Pulp Fiction meets Ten Little Indians in a stylish and bloody 2018 thriller called Bad Times at the El Royale that will have the viewer on the edge of its chair for the majority of its running time before running out of gas with an overlong and over the top finale.
It is 1969 and we are introduced to the El Royale, a hotel which was actually constructed on the border between California and Nevada. The rooms on the California side actually cost a dollar more than the ones in Nevada and the key chains for the rooms are in the shape of the states. The hotel has a staff of one, a nervous young man named Miles and the film opens with a man checking into a room, hiding a large amount of cash underneath the floorboards of a room and shortly afterwards is murdered.
Almost a decade later, we watch an aging priest suffering from dementia, a cocky vacuum cleaner salesman, a struggling nightclub singer, and a hippie with a mouth like a sailor check into the hotel on the same day. These virtual strangers not only prove not to be strangers, but none of them are exactly who they say they are, all have huge secrets which they try to protect before it all blows up in their respective faces.
Director and writer Drew Goddard has experience in television and films, but what comes through mostly here is the Quentin Tarantino influence that comes through in his work...the occasional sacrifice of substance for style and the disjointed form of storytelling that requires undivided attention from the viewer. In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino tells his story out of order but that's not exactly what Goddard does here. We get parts of the same story told from different viewpoints and connecting story events like puzzle pieces, which is more akin to what Tarantino did in Jackie Brown. There is also influence of directors like Hitchcock and John Carpenter...Goddard displays an affinity for creating nail-biting suspense as well as the instantaneous "Boo" that makes the viewer jump from their chair. Sadly, Goddard does get a little full of himself with a pretentious and overlong finale which produces questions that shouldn't be produced at this point and definitely tries viewer patience.
The film is handsomely produced with particular nods to art direction/set direction and some spectacular film editing by Lisa Lassek. The El Royale is the coolest hotel I have seen in a movie since The Overlook in The Shining. There are some terrific performances from Jeff Bridges as the priest, Jon Hamm as the salesman, Cynthia Erivo (who was also in this year's Widows) as the nightclub singer, Lewis Pullman as Miles, and Chris Hemsworth, surprisingly effective as a charismatic cult leader. Until the final 15 minutes or so, spine-tingling entertainment that definitely kept me on my toes.
Pulp Fiction meets Ten Little Indians in a stylish and bloody 2018 thriller called Bad Times at the El Royale that will have the viewer on the edge of its chair for the majority of its running time before running out of gas with an overlong and over the top finale.
It is 1969 and we are introduced to the El Royale, a hotel which was actually constructed on the border between California and Nevada. The rooms on the California side actually cost a dollar more than the ones in Nevada and the key chains for the rooms are in the shape of the states. The hotel has a staff of one, a nervous young man named Miles and the film opens with a man checking into a room, hiding a large amount of cash underneath the floorboards of a room and shortly afterwards is murdered.
Almost a decade later, we watch an aging priest suffering from dementia, a cocky vacuum cleaner salesman, a struggling nightclub singer, and a hippie with a mouth like a sailor check into the hotel on the same day. These virtual strangers not only prove not to be strangers, but none of them are exactly who they say they are, all have huge secrets which they try to protect before it all blows up in their respective faces.
Director and writer Drew Goddard has experience in television and films, but what comes through mostly here is the Quentin Tarantino influence that comes through in his work...the occasional sacrifice of substance for style and the disjointed form of storytelling that requires undivided attention from the viewer. In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino tells his story out of order but that's not exactly what Goddard does here. We get parts of the same story told from different viewpoints and connecting story events like puzzle pieces, which is more akin to what Tarantino did in Jackie Brown. There is also influence of directors like Hitchcock and John Carpenter...Goddard displays an affinity for creating nail-biting suspense as well as the instantaneous "Boo" that makes the viewer jump from their chair. Sadly, Goddard does get a little full of himself with a pretentious and overlong finale which produces questions that shouldn't be produced at this point and definitely tries viewer patience.
The film is handsomely produced with particular nods to art direction/set direction and some spectacular film editing by Lisa Lassek. The El Royale is the coolest hotel I have seen in a movie since The Overlook in The Shining. There are some terrific performances from Jeff Bridges as the priest, Jon Hamm as the salesman, Cynthia Erivo (who was also in this year's Widows) as the nightclub singer, Lewis Pullman as Miles, and Chris Hemsworth, surprisingly effective as a charismatic cult leader. Until the final 15 minutes or so, spine-tingling entertainment that definitely kept me on my toes.