No Vacancy

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By Tom Pacak

The best advice I can give you before watching “Bad Times At The El Royale” is to avoid the trailers. I usually tell people to not watch the trailers because in my generation the trailers give away too much. They’re basically a montage of all the great parts in a movie. After seeing “Bad Times At The El Royale,” I decided to give the previews a look. Almost all of the film’s clever twists with the exception of one are given away in the trailers. SO PLEASE AVOID TRAILERS! 

 Set in 1970, six strangers Catholic priest Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges), soul singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm), young woman Emily Summersping (Dakota Johnson), sole manager of the hotel Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman), and a mysterious hippie Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth) are stranded at the El Royale. El Royale is a motel that borders Nevada and California. The interior of the hotel has a red line going down the middle that specifies the state lines. Director Drew Goddard who wrote “Cloverfield” and “The Martian” and co-wrote and directed “The Cabin in the Woods” is a clever artist. Goddard uses his cleverness to an advantage here to cover up all of the film’s plot holes.

This is also one of those films where the characters you meet are not who they say they are.  Laramie Seymour Sullivan is revealed to actually be an FBI agent named Dwight Broadbeck who was sent to investigate the mystery of the hotel. Along his investigation, he disables all of the phones and electricity in his room. When snooping around the hotel, he discovers there’s a tunnel in the hotel connected to each of the rooms. In the tunnel, are two-way mirrors where management can watch people from the mirror. In each mirror, he discovers Darlene singing, Father Flynn dismembering the floorboards, and Emily bringing in a kidnapped victim from her car Rose (Cailee Spaeney).

If you think this a movie about a hotel spying on people for personal gain, you’re watching the wrong movie. In Drew Goddard’s “The Cabin in the Woods,” the two controllers of the system (Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins) were there to choose the fate of the victims. The victims were apart of the game were their doom was already set. In “Bad Times at the El Royale,” none of these characters were in control of how things would pan out. “Management” the people, who wanted the filming of the El Royale rooms, is the audience. We don’t choose the fate of the characters but we see if these characters luck out. 

All of the characters in this film are very interesting. They all have motivations that sound evil but are far more complex once you hear the backstory. Jeff Bridges is superb as a priest who may or not actually be a priest but practices the beliefs of Catholicism and forgiveness. Dakota Johnson (who I criticize for her 50 shade series) also excels here as a kidnapper with a very complex reason for kidnapping someone. Sullivan seeing Emily kidnapping Rose and finally confronting her is symbolism for there are two sides to each story. Newcomer Lewis Pullman also does good work as the junkie concierge with many sins and regrets. My favorite performance comes from Chris Hemsworth. He steals every scene he’s in here as a charismatic hippie who comes searching for trouble at the El Royale. I really love the comedic energy Hemsworth has shown in “Thor: Ragnarok” and he really brings it here even if it’s for a short bit. 

Drew Goddard shows in “Bad Times At The El Royale” how much he admires Quentin Tarantino. The film is told in a non-linear point of view, has long pacing, and even uses time cards to show the different points of view of a certain event. Keep in mind; only Tarantino can use those techniques flawlessly. “Bad Times At The El Royale” is not a perfect film. It’s pacing is a little too slow in some scenes (we really didn’t need all of the solo scenes), it’s 20 minutes too long, and has many plot holes. But that doesn’t stop it from being a good time at the movies. Stay at the El Royale for a night and enjoy a great artist (Drew Goddard) out-clever himself even if you're head starts spinning.

Note: Now Playing in Theaters


Rating: 3 Stars out of 4 stars

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