Writer-director Drew Goddard is back behind the camera on the big screen for the first time since he served the same two roles on his stunning and wildly inventive The Cabin in the Woods. Bad Times at the El Royale finds the artist painting in the noir-thriller mode in a wildly original entry in that genre—exactly as he did with the horror genre with his 2012 terror-fest.
The El Royale Hotel is a unique establishment—it sits straddling Nevada and California. Guests can decide whether they want a room in the Silver State or the Golden State. It is the early 70s and a cross-section of folks, seven in total, find themselves at the titular locale for various reasons…and none of them are for rest and relaxation.
Yes, there’s an all-star cast, but if there is an anchor among this ensemble, it’s Lewis Pullman’s Miles Miller. He’s the bellhop, front desk reservationist, housekeeping and chronicler of all who check in—as seen in the Bad Times at the El Royale trailer. Every room has a one-way mirror (obviously unknown to the guests) and when management asks Miles, he tapes the goings-on in the rooms for potential exploitative nature.
On this fateful evening, a traveling vacuum salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm) is joined by singer Darlene Sweet (stage sensation Cynthia Erivo), Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges) and Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson) a woman who appears to be on the run with her sister, Ruth (Cailee Spaeny). I know what you’re saying—thought there was seven folks?! Yes, there is… the last member of this septuplet group is Chris Hemsworth—who dazzles as a leader of a Me Decade cult. How he figures in firmly resides in spoiler territory… let’s just say he’s our main villain and it is dazzling to see the Thor hero go dark.
Bad Times at the El Royale feels very much the modern noir thriller where all involved are hardly who they say they are, and nobody budges on revealing any type of information to each other, and thus the viewers. Pieces to the puzzle are continually being shifted and how the tapestry that Goddard has weaved will look is an evolving mystery. His latest auteur effort enormously reminds us of The Cabin in the Woods. There is a voyeuristic feel to the entire thing that mirrors his 2012 flick as well as an overwhelming tone that each character is hardly an angel, and each will meet a fate that—in hindsight—was completely of their own making.
The ensemble is electric. Each member firmly commands their spoke in the wheel with every soul equally throwing wrenches into the engine that is each other’s plans. The actors all get their moment to shine, thanks to a well-crafted script—dramatically—that never reveals too much as it plods along.
Plods, you say?
That’s the only criticism I have with the film is it drags in parts and not in a manner that produces boredom by any sense of the imagination. Specifically, Goddard’s film suffers from a lack of tightness. A true noir should never allow its audiences’ collective mind to wander and that, unfortunately, happens on occasion with Bad Times at the El Royale.
There have been some comparisons to Pulp Fiction with Goddard’s film and I can see where that comes from and is somewhat on point. Goddard breaks his tale down by “chapters,” if you will. Each segment focuses on a different room. It explores the story from the point of view (and backstory) of that that room’s resident on this dark and rainy evening. The narrative is not necessarily straight forward, timewise. How Goddard utilizes that storytelling element and the violence aspect is firmly why those Quentin Tarantino-classic comparisons are being made. It is not even close to that level of revolutionary cinema. The thing is, if one enjoys their crime thrillers that keep you guessing, that finds actors excelling around every plot twist-curve of the storytelling road and possesses a sight and sound experience that is multi-sensory in its tone and tenor, then checking in to the El Royale is a good idea.
Grade: B