Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) intrigued me from the moment that I saw the trailer for it. It appealed to me with its visual style, the sense of cool it seemed to carry with it, and the cast was also a winner, especially Jeff Bridges who I am a big fan of. It looked like it would be right up my street and so I made a note to make sure I didn't miss it. And I can’t lie, I was a little disappointed with the film. It’s not bad, nor is it good. It has cool concepts but seems to try too hard to be cool. It has good performances, but not memorable ones. It feels like a Tarantino fan wanted to make a Tarantino film and lost its own voice in the process. The film follows several guests at the El Royale hotel, a hotel that is split down the middle by the state line so that one half is in California and the other falls in the state of Nevada. It used to be a bustling and thriving hub for the rich and famous but has since fallen off the map. The guest at the hotel are a Catholic priest, Father Daniel Flynn, a singer, Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), a Vacuum Cleaner Salesman, Laramie Seymour Sullivan (John Hamm) and a mysterious hippie, Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson). To tell you much more would spoil a lot of the film, so I won't go too much into the plot, but I will say that all the characters have their motives for being at the El Royale and all have their secrets which come to light as the film progresses.
The film is not without its merits. The first twenty minutes really took me in with its aesthetic and the introduction of these characters. Set in 1969, the film takes up the whole look of the time and it is an aesthetic style that I have a particular liking for. I'm not entirely sure why, I just really like the look and feel of that time. The character introductions are also done well, giving us an initial read on their personalities without having them spout unneeded exposition. Laramie Sullivan does give a bit of exposition, but it matches his character as he a salesman, and also comes back in to play later on in the film. The performances of all these characters are good as well. John Hamm is good in his role being both confident and suave but slimy at the same time. Cynthia Erivo is also very good and engaging playing a singer who could have gone to the big time but is now playing small bars, and Jeff Bridges is excellent as the priest who is suffering from dementia, and has one scene where he tells Darlene about his condition that he performs brilliantly, although he has a problem of being Jeff Bridges and so you can't really look past the actor and fully but the character. This isn't necessarily his fault, but it can be a problem. One person who wasn't particularly impressed by was Dakota Johnson. She wasn't terrible, but she was pretty bland and didn't show to much real emotion at any point throughout, keeping a constant air of slight annoyance about every and all situations he finds herself in. There are two standout performances in this film, and they come from Chris Hemsworth and Lewis Pullman. Hemsworth plays a Charles Manson like California surfer boy who also happens to be a predatory cult leader. He plays the role of a psychopath who is very in love with himself and enjoys inflicting pain on people very well and the film picks up quite a bit when he is introduced. Lewis Pullman plays almost the exact opposite of Hemsworth, playing the shy and nervous wreck of a clerk, Miles Miller. He has the best character arc throughout the film and does a great job of really selling this arc to us and making us believe it, all while making him the most relatable and sympathetic character in the film. He was the actor who I came out of the film being most impressed with and I look forward to seeing him in other films.
The film does have some pretty big problems however. The film has a cool concept and some good ideas, but it struggles to properly deliver on them. Several ideas are brought up and dropped, with the biggest being the whole California, Nevada divide. After the first twenty minutes it would seem that this would be a more important plot point than it ever ends up being, and this happens a few times. It’s not all bad, like a say the concept is cool and this leads to some really good scenes. The best scene in the film is where Hamm's character goes snooping around the hotel and finds the hallway behind the mirrors that looks into all the rooms. I can't go into too much detail, but this scene is suspenseful, atmospheric and performed brilliantly and is the most memorable moment of the film. And on that note, I think it’s fair to say that the direction of the film is also very good. It is directed by Drew Goddard, the director of The Cabin in the Woods (2012), and he does a good job. The film looks slick and is visually impressive, and as I mentioned above there are a few very impressive and memorable scenes. However, the film when it is all said and done can feel convoluted and overly long. The film takes up the Pulp Fiction (1994) method of storytelling by showing the same scenarios from several different perspectives using flashbacks. This is a cool idea and I think could have worked in this film if it wasn't mixed in with flashbacks from years ago for almost all the characters too. It is just an information overload and it ends up meaning that you care less as a lot of the mystery of the characters gets stripped away. Also, the film is 2 hours and 21 minutes long which, if you didn't already know, is too fucking long.
Bad Times at the El Royale is a film that I came out thinking that it was okay. Not anything special and not something I can see myself seeing again but also not a waste of my time and a film I am still glad I saw. It has an aesthetic and look that I really like, is directed well and has several very good performances, but its method of storytelling and pacing means that I could feel myself becoming restless in my seat wondering "Where is this going?" and not in a way where I was curious but more in a way where I was annoyed. If I was to give you my honest opinion on whether you should see this in the cinema I would say no, probably not. I feel like it is a film suited for Netflix and if the film was to come onto Netflix it might be worth watch. But the biggest burning question is yet to be asked or answered, did I have a good time at the El Royale? Kinda.