Bad Times at the El Royale

A strange mosaic of human destinies that meet in a hotel on the border between California and Nevada. It’s a bit like Goddard wanted to make a Tarantino movie, but he lacks the light hand and sense of humor. But still this is a decent and mainly clever, original watch; you don’t often see this sort of thing these days. (11/08/2019)

I would give it 5 stars and would possibly be raving about the return to the dark 90s and how this is the best film of 2018 if it weren’t for some particular moments of the screenplay. This way the movie “only” qualifies for a pretty good genre film which reminds me of the best gangster movies of the 1990s put into a rainy, Seven-like feel. Have you noticed how the rain plays an important role in the atmosphere of similar films? It’s a pity I didn’t have the chance to experience a downpour comparable to the one in the movie in real life this year. Films are soon going to be the only thing reminding me of what rain even is. Anyway, from a film-making point of view Bad Times at The El Royale is a real smash. The closed setting of the hotel sometimes made me feel like I was watching an adaptation of some Agatha Christie detective novel. The well-written characters and dialogues then reminded me of Tarantino. Only here they fortunately didn't launch into endless discussions about nothing and most of the two and a half hours was pure action. All acting performances were brilliant but you gotta applaud Jeff Bridges in particular. (31/12/2018)

This is more functional and entertaining than any of Tarantino's films since Jackie Brown. Tarantino-esque films, where violence and corpses are not spared, have long worked better for me in the films of other creators. It's solidly cast, and while veteran Jeff Bridges caught my attention the most, no one drags the film down. It has an inventive screenplay, which I would only criticize for being a clever play that relies on the screenwriter's imagination. I prefer films that are capable of creating the impression of something real, where the factor of chance triggers a shocking sequence of events. Here, the meeting of people with a dirty past in one hotel complex represents madness, but it has order and, to some extent, makes sense. Overall impression: 75%. (23/11/2023)

A Tarantino flick without Tarantino. Whereas in his previous film, The Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard uniquely juggled the clichés of the horror genre, in Bad Times at the El Royale he only clumsily tries to cook something up from the ingredients of gangster movies and the diversity of characters placed in a precarious situation. But the problem lies in those characters. The definition of the two antagonistic characters (the girls) is weak and their random inclusion in the main storyline (Jeff Bridges looking for something) comes across as superficial. And the film’s least effective and worst-cast character is the one played by Chris Hemsworth, who should have instead kicked the film’s climax up a notch. The film also fails to properly exploit the potential of the “in the wrong place at the wrong time” motif. The intermingling of timeframes is not cleverly developed and the pace is needlessly slow in places, relying on dialogue that lacks refinement. However, Jeff Bridges gets the job done, Dakota is better suited to the role of a bitch than that of the dainty lady in Fifty Shades of Grey, and the young supporting actor Lewis Pullman ends up making the most sense of all. (06/12/2022)

Drew Goddard, the director of the great The Cabin in the Woods, did not please me at all with this one and after a long time I left the cinema completely bored. (I guess the other four people in the cinema fell asleep and my friends said after an hour that if someone doesn't die and soon, we leave). I had high hopes for this film, the trailers were promising, there decent actors, an attractive premise, and there was also the similarity to both Identity and The Hateful Eight, which I liked, but this one unfortunately failed with me. The film is 142 minutes long and doesn't offer enough enticing material to fully entertain and satisfy the viewer. The hotel with a hidden secret was fine, the sets are nice, the music is great music, and at first I was even entertained by the unknown mystery, but it didn't really go anywhere. Most of the time is given to Jeff Bridges and Cynthia Erivo, who are probably the least interesting characters in the film, with only Dakota Johnson surprisingly pulling it off as an actor, and then Chris Hemsworth, but he shows up half an hour before the end, and that felt like a letdown. The twists and turns are unexpected but not shocking (Lewis Pullman slightly surprised in the ending), the dialogue is futile and the lack of blood and action scenes is a minus for me. There is only one shootout at the end and it's over before I could say shoemaker. Too bad the director didn't pull something in the style of The Cabin in the Woods, it would have fit nicely here. A tedious and not very entertaining film, but it has its own vibe. 60%. (23/10/2018)