Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) 20th Century Fox/Suspense-Thriller RT: 141 minutes Rated R (strong violence, language, some drug content, brief nudity) Director: Drew Goddard Screenplay: Drew Goddard Music: Michael Giacchino Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey Release date: October 12, 2018 (US) Cast: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Chris Hemsworth, Nick Offerman, Xavier Dolan, Shea Whigham, Manny Jacinto, Mark O’Brien, Charles Halford, Jim O’Heir, Hannah Jane Zirke, Charlotte Mosby. Box Office: $17.8M (US)/$31.9M (World)
Rating: ** ½
It’s nice to see Pulp Fiction is still so influential after nearly a quarter of a century. Writer-director Drew Goddard’s (The Cabin in the Woods) obviously modeled his latest film Bad Times at the El Royale after Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 masterpiece with its multiple storylines and non-linear narrative structure. It’s likely he was also inspired by QT’s debut film Reservoir Dogs with the bevy of dishonest criminal types (e.g. crooks, killers and an undercover law enforcement agent) on display. It also has a soundtrack laden with pop songs of the 60s. Even a word in the title references a famous conversation from Pulp Fiction. Given that Goddard is old (or young) enough to have studied Tarantino’s work in film school, it’s pretty clear what he’s going for. And here I thought we were done with all the QT wannabes in the 90s.
Bad Times at the El Royale is what I call an interesting failure. Although it lacks originality, it does contain some good ideas. Much of it is actually kind of fun. It’s a non-serious take on film noir set at an upscale motel that’s seen better days. It’s located right on the California-Nevada border. The rooms on either side are stylized after their respective locations. The California side has a bar while Nevada has a casino (now closed, they lost their license). Guests can choose which state they want to stay in, not that the El Royale has seen many of those lately. That’s about to change in a big, violent way.
The prologue has a man hiding a bag of money under the floorboards of one of the rooms only to be killed by another man (presumably after the money) just moments later. Ten years later (1969, to be exact), Father Flynn (Bridges, The Big Lebowski), and singer Darlene Sweet (Tony Award winner Erivo) arrive (separately, of course) to stay for the night. They’re met in the lobby by an obnoxious traveling salesman, Laramie (Hamm, Baby Driver), who informs them that the honeymoon suite is his, no ifs, ands or buts about it. The only person working at the motel is the young concierge Miles (Pullman, The Strangers: Prey at Night) who seems rattled to have guests much less a priest who he thinks has no business staying at a place like the El Royale. Minutes later, a hostile woman named Emily (Johnson, the Fifty Shades movies) shows up looking for a room for the night.
I don’t want to give away too much about Bad Times at the El Royale so I’ll just touch upon a few salient plot points. It’s divided into sections (kind of/sort of like Four Rooms) in which we learn what brought each character to the El Royale. Laramie starts checking his room for listening devices and finds several. Flynn starts ripping out the floorboards in his room. Darlene, on her way to a gig in Reno, practices her act. Emily brings an unconscious girl, Rose (Spaeny, Pacific Rim: Uprising), into her room and ties her to a chair. It turns out that the mirrors in each room are made of one-way glass. Somebody can watch them from the other side. There’s also some business about a murderous hippie cult leader, Billy Lee (Hemsworth, Thor), and his followers. Any resemblance to Charles Manson is purely intentional I’m sure. There’s even a MacGuffin of sorts, an incriminating film of some unnamed famous person engaged in some kind of hanky panky. It’s a motel, draw your own conclusions. It’s important enough that a lot of people would love to get their hands on it.
Perhaps I was hasty in calling Bad Times at the El Royale a “failure”. Let’s call it a near-failure. It’s not a bad movie, not at all. Sure, it’s derivative and overlong. Yes, the acting is all over the map. It has pacing issues. There’s a conversation scene between Flynn and Darlene that evokes Pam Grier and Robert Forster in QT’s Jackie Brown. The tone is decidedly uneven veering between strong violence and off-kilter characters. Goddard wants to be Tarantino in the worst way.
At the same time, there’s something inherently watchable about Bad Times at the El Royale. It’s a long movie but never a dull one. Even in scenes that drag a bit, it’s never actually boring. For me, it was waiting to see what Goddard had up his sleeve next that kept me interested. Also, he selected a pretty cool cast. I really like Jeff Bridges. He’s one of those actors that keep improving with age. He can make almost any movie watchable. If you’ve ever seen The Giver (and I don’t recommend it), you know what I mean. Johnson isn’t entirely convincing in her role but maybe that’s precisely the point. I can’t say more than that without dropping spoilers.
Goddard’s first film The Cabin in the Woods is a clever satire of modern horror films and how the makers try to manufacture scares rather than earn them. He tries to be equally clever with Bad Times at the El Royale and doesn’t wholly succeed. It doesn’t seem like he’s goofing on the genre so much as he is copying it. That is, the satire doesn’t come through this time. At least not as well as Cabin did. He tries to come off like he’s not taking things too seriously but the violent climax says otherwise. It’s a film at war with itself. Despite this, I kind of/sort of enjoyed it. More accurately, I didn’t hate it. If anything, I was slightly frustrated by it. In actively trying to be clever, it shoots itself in the foot by being too clever. It could have been better. Oh well, at least it doesn’t suck.
