Film noir has gone through an interesting evolution since
its inception. Although born in the shadows and often associated with dark
streets, grizzled detectives, femme fatales, gun fights in narrow alleys and
car chases in dirty streets, twisting tales and underworld intrigue can be
found anywhere. Hell, a few weeks ago I reviewed A
Simple Favor, which was basically a noir transplanted to suburban
Connecticut and featured a mommy vlogger and a fashionista. Bad Times at the El Royale, the
sophomore directorial effort from writer and producer Drew Goddard, takes its influences
and runs with them. But unlike his previous film, Cabin in the Woods, which sought to deconstruct an entire genre,
this one isn’t so interested in complete deconstruction as it is in rearranging
the parts into something new.
Our story takes place in the late 60’s and is set in the titular
El Royale, a shabby hotel near Lake Tahoe split by the California/Nevada
border. One night, the hotel is only home to a small group of disparate guests:
a kindly priest (Jeff Bridges), a meek singer (Cynthia Erivo), a gregarious vacuum
cleaner salesman (Jon Hamm), an irritable hippy (Dakota Johnson), and the hotel’s
sole employee, a timid manager (Lewis Pullman). When one of the tenants starts snooping
around, he finds that his room is bugged, there are secret rooms and compartments
everywhere, no one at the hotel is quite what they say they are, and it all comes
to a crescendo when a charismatic cult leader (Chris Hemsworth) arrives to take
back what was stolen from him.
There’s a lot of plot going on in this movie, sometimes to
its own detriment. Characters are unceremoniously killed off in the first act,
new characters come in the third act to shake things up, and while the movie
tries to use this asset to its advantage, the constant gear shifts end up
working against it at times. We’re given frequent flashbacks to everyone’s
past, scenes will often rewind to show it again from another perspective, and
things don’t fully come together until the climax. It’s pretty easy to tell
that things aren’t all that they seem, but Goddard keeps his cards close to his
chest and makes it hard to guess what direction he’s taking you.
Some of you are probably thinking that this sounds an awful
lot like Quentin Tarantino, or at least the slew of post-Pulp Fiction crime thrillers that aped his style (think Snatch, Layer Cake or Lucky Number Slevin). Structure isn’t
the only thing it has in common with the mad auteur. The over-the-top violence,
the long conversations about nothing in particular, and the vintage aesthetic
and soundtrack are also reminiscent of his early work, but whereas Tarantino
knows how to keep the momentum going at a steadily accelerating pace, this one
stumbles a few times before regaining its balance. It’s like watching a dealer
shuffle a deck of cards; you admire the dexterity, but there comes a point
where you want him to quit showing off and deal already.
The performances are what truly sell it, though. With a
relatively small cast where nearly everyone goes through some kind of face/heel
turn at some point or reveals some hidden depth, nearly everyone has a shining
moment. The story functions like a collection of play-like vignettes, and the script
is laced with bits of long, character-driven, subtext-rich dialogue that actors
live for. Jeff Bridges and Cynthia Erivo especially relish in this with a revealing
late-night conversation about Bridges’ deteriorating mental state and Eviro’s
struggles in the music industry and the powerful men she had to put up with to get where she is. She also gives a pretty powerful rebuttal to the cult leader when he tries to play games with their lives. (You'll know it when you hear it.)
Stylistically, the movie also aims to encapsulate the late
60’s, but not so much the free love and boundless opportunity, but rather the danger,
paranoia and intrigue of the era. The movie does this by dropping references to
the key components of the shifting tides of the decade from Cold War spying, Vietnam
flashbacks and the Kennedy assassination, and no brownie points for guessing
who Chris Hemsworth’s character is inspired by. (I’ll give you a hint: it
rhymes with Blarles Blanson.) Erivo’s role as a singer allows multiple
opportunities for a few covers of Motown and Brill Building hits, while a
jukebox on the Nevada side of the hotel provides a soundtrack for some of the movie’s
more intense scenes.
Bottom line, Bad Times
at the El Royale is convoluted, a bit unwieldy at times, but never boring
and constantly keeps you guessing. If you enjoy something in the vein of Identity or And Then There Were None but would like to see it in a Tarantino
cosplay, this should do the trick.
7/10
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