Bad Times At The El Royale

Ein Tarantino-Film ohne Tarantino. In seinem vorherigen Film The Cabin in the Woods hat Drew Goddard einzigartig mit Genreklischees von Horrorfilmen jongliert. Hier versucht er, mit Gangsterfilm-Zutaten und vielfältigen Figuren in einer prekären Situation zu arbeiten. Er macht es aber ein bisschen ungeschickt. Problematisch sind schon die Figuren an sich. Die Definition der beiden negativen Charaktere (die Mädchen) ist schwach und ihre zufällige Kollision mit der Haupthandlung (Jeff Bridges, der etwas sucht) wirkt oberflächlich. Die Rolle mit der schlimmsten Besetzung ist die von Chris Hemsworth (seine Figur funktioniert außerdem nicht besonders gut), der das Finale im Gegenteil in die Höhe kicken sollte. Der Film hat auch nicht ausreichend das Potenzial des Themas „zu einem schlechten Zeitpunkt an einem schlechten Ort“ genutzt. Die Überschneidung der Zeitebenen hat keine schlaue Pointe. Das Tempo ist manchmal zu langsam und es verlässt sich auf die Dialoge, die nicht besonders ausgefeilt sind. Jeff Bridges spielt aber wie ein echter Kerl, zu Dakota passt die Bitch-Rolle besser als das Mädchen aus Fifty Shades of Grey und den größten Sinn macht letztendlich der junge Schauspieler Lewis Pullman in einer Nebenrolle. (05.12.2022)

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)

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. (12.10.2018)

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)

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)

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 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. (10.08.2019)

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)

Vielleicht ein bisschen zu lang, aber sonst wirklich sehr gut. Bei der Besetzung dominieren der fantastische Jeff Bridges und die super sympathische Cynthia Erivo. Das Drehbuch ist voller Überraschungen und dank seiner Unvorhersagbarkeit ist es auch spannend (als sich das Finale näherte, habe ich gedacht, dass jetzt wirklich alles passieren kann, vielleicht außer einer Invasion von Außerirdischen). Die bunte Kamera und verschiedene Regie-Ideen passen gut zu dem Soundtrack und Giacchinos Instrumentalmusik ist beeindruckend. Ich habe mich in die Szene mit dem Gesang und dem Auseinandernehmen des Fußbodens verliebt. Das ist aber bei weitem nicht die einzige ausgezeichnete Szene. Den ungerechten Vergleich mit Tarantino werde ich Ihnen ersparen. (26.08.2019)

I’m not saying I’m jumping in joy, but this retro stuff hit the spot of my mood and my tastes. If I had the skills to write and direct in Hollywood, stories with unpredictable characters and set in a small, often symbolic places like this would probably be the kind I’d be interested in the most; also thanks to the soundtrack, with which in this case Goddard checks all the boxes to build a period backdrop that is impossible not to love. It’s true that the script relies mostly on effect, that it lays down the cards too early and that you won’t find many memorable lines, but it’s still an adorably extravagant piece of filmmaking that, thanks to well timed explanatory flashbacks, has no trouble holding the attention of the viewer and keeping the tension about which of the interestingly written characters will come out with their head still on its place. The hotel itself is great, the actors are precise and it’s amazing how Goddard manages to defame the morals of America with only a handful of characters, a mysterious place and an even more mysterious filmstrip (though it’s not too hard to figure out which overseas idol committed the atrocities captured in it). It could certainly be more genre subversive and the escalation in the first half could be better, but I’m satisfied regardless. 75% (17.10.2018)

It's like going down a hill on a roller coaster where halfway down you notice that the track is twisted at the end and you know there's no stopping it, the trouble is coming faster and faster and it's clear that when you get there it's not going to end well. Bad Times at the El Royale draws on a rewarding series of stories working with the zeitgeist of peculiar hotels and their own broken pasts riddled with secret passageways, listening devices, and all manner of other skeletons in the closet. In the first act he manages to build up that space and the curiosity of what lies behind it quite successfully, especially by taking his time with everything, which also works quite well thanks to the nice cinematography. However, once the cards are laid out, it fails to pick up the pace, which is one of the fundamental screenwriting flaws described above, because then the film actually starts feeling even slower. As if no one would notice, the film starts serving us seemingly endless "musical" numbers from one of the characters, masking the fact that it has run out of ideas dangerously quickly and is just waiting for the arrival of the Hemsworth ex machina to bury the whole thing for good. This contorted fitness commercial then spends an interminable twenty minutes humiliating itself in an attempt to emulate Charles Manson, making death threats against characters you stopped caring about long before, and the flagging of the film seemed all the more toothless to me since I'd seen Cosmatos' Mandy the day before. The final religious catharsis felt merely a hair's breadth away from the end of Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal, when the lead singer of a metal band in a crashing plane tosses the inverted cross from his neck and starts praying to God. And that's not a compliment. (08.01.2019)

Es ist ein bisschen Tarantino, ein bisschen City of God, ein bisschen etwas, das wir kennen und nicht benennen können, und es funktioniert und hält zusammen. Ich muss wie immer kritisch zur Laufzeit sein – ohne die langwierige Einleitung hätte der Film viel mehr Schwung und Dynamik gehabt. Die Charaktere sind gut entwickelt, die Geschichten der Zimmer haben mir gefallen, ebenso wie Chris Hemsworth, der wahrscheinlich zum ersten Mal in einer negativen Rolle eines Idioten zu sehen ist. Übrigens, positive Figuren sind im Film schwer zu finden. (05.11.2023)

142 minutes with barely anything but dialogue - under regular circumstances I would probably be bored and the film would get a maximum one star, but ... I wasn’t bored at all, the occasional outbursts of violence accentuated the plot, I liked the cast (except for the Grey Dakota) and the retro vibe. Jeff Bridges will hopefully forgive me, but the best character was Miles Miller. Bill Pullman can be happy with his son's performance. The film didn't lack a decent amount of black humor, so I had a great time. (07.03.2019)

So many failed existences converging at the El Royale hotel, seeking their place in the world. I immensely enjoyed gradually uncovering their dark pasts and at times being scared about what would follow. I have to commend the clever screenplay, where many times I didn't have a clue what's coming next. I was equally fascinated by the imaginative use of music at crucial moments in the film to move the plot forward. In this regard, I particularly enjoyed the scene where Jeff Bridges was dissecting the floorboards in secrecy and Cynthia Erivo tried to support him vocally and then by clapping rhythmically to avoid any revelations. This led me in a small roundabout way to a wonderful soundtrack, which I think I'll start looking for. (85%) (13.02.2021)