Bad Times at the El Royale

The beginning stumped me, when it is not clear who is on which side of the barricade and what brought them to the hotel, as did the unexpected reveal of the multiple red herring storylines of the individual characters, which intentionally bring no surprises. However, the last act does not fit in at all with the previous events and for something long awaited brings a damn shortage of entertainment. Not to mention that, considering all the tough talk from before, it pulls its punches several times, even shamefully. It's a pity, especially because the setting and the cast are spot on. (04/12/2019)

Several people arrive at a small hotel in the middle of nowhere. They have nothing in common at first glance, but in a few hours most of them will be dead, and the rest will be really upset. Drew Goddard directs a smart film in the style of Tarantino with interesting characters, good actors and fun direction. It does run out of breath a bit towards the end, but overall it manages to entertain quite nicely thanks to the ideas, the characters and a few rough twists. It probably won't be a genre classic like The Cabin in the Woods, though. (13/10/2018)

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)

Like The Hateful Eight made by someone less skilled than Tarantino. What's missing is a proper splatter finale, dialogues and whole passages stretched to absurdity, and that specific dark humour feeling. The attempt to copy, or rather duplicate, is significant, but it does not produce the desired result. A few surprising murders and the unpredictability are OK, the location is also impressive, but 142 minutes is damn long in the company of such an unbalanced film. (22/04/2019)

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)