This is going to be hard to review without any spoilers. I’m gonna give it my best shot.
I recently watched...
BAD TIMES at the El Royale
Bad Times at the El Royal is a movie unlike any I have watched in a long time. This film displays masterful cinematography, intriguing acting, and dialogue smoother than ice on a hot day. This isn’t a perfect movie by any means, but it’s a darn interesting.
Bad Times at the El Royal utilizes still camera with a tremendously long depth of field. Pedantic types call this camera technique “Pan Focus”. This allows the audience to take a voyeur’s point of view. We, the audience, stand behind the two-way mirror facing into the motel rooms. We can see everything in the room, and even all the way into the parking lot when the door is open. We watch with anticipation as the characters execute their machinations on screen.
Nobody staying at the El Royal is exactly who they appear to be. That’s as true for the actors as it is for the characters they play. Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, John Hamm, Dakota Johnson and Nick Offerman all step outside their usual typecast roles to play two-faced characters whose true faults are slowly revealed. Relative newcomers Cynthia Erivo, and Cailee Spaeny also deliver fantastic performances as the anima to counterbalance this butch film. This ensemble cast delivers sharp dialogue with a rhythm and meter that feels poetic without losing verisimilitude.
Unfortunately, the El Royale is not without its faults. Plotwise, this film has a very strong first act, maintains most of the momentum in the second act, and then runs off the rails in the third act. Just as the characters of this film come unraveled, so to does the plot. Numerous plot threads either go unresolved or left to the audience’s imagination. A knowledge of late 1960s American history helps here. This film seeks to capture the zeitgeist of the late ‘60s without explanation. If you don’t know about Kennedy’s affairs, the rise and fall of Motown records, and the Manson family, then a few of these plot elements might go over your head. This is one movie that might actually benefit from a creator commentary track, or just some annotations. Suffice to say that the ending of the film is mildly unsatisfying.
I walked out of the theater with mixed feelings. My two companions, on the other hand, did not mix words. My fiancée said to her best friend, “so... that was a pretty bad movie, right?” They were complaining about the movie when they walked into the ladies room, and they were still complaining about the movie a thousand hours later when they finally walked back out of the ladies room. Maybe it’s just the kind of movie that men enjoy more than women do.
I certainly don’t think that Bad Times at the El Royale is a bad movie. There are moments when it even seems like a great movie. BTatER reminds me of a figure skater who performs a triple axel in mid air, but then falters on the landing. If the filmmakers had stuck the landing in the third act, then everyone would be talking about what an amazing triumph they had achieved. Instead, all anyone can recall is that Bad Times at the El Royal didn’t stick the landing.
Verdict: watch Bad Times at the El Royale when is comes out in Blu-ray or DVD so that you can listen to creator commentary. It might be the only way to know what in the hell is going on.
