Bad
Times At The El Royale 5/10
I
watched the movie Bad Times At El Royale and it took me a little bit
to figure out what kinda score I would give it. While watching I
started to feel like it was taking too long to get really going and
realized it was only about twenty minutes in. Then I thought “This
feels like it was written and directed by the same person...” Turns
out I was right. There is a certain feel that movies that have both
and that feeling is usually a lack of editing, strange pacing, and
being too long. This movie looks amazing. It was beautifully shot.
The sound, the look, the acting were all good. But the pacing was all
over the place. There were character arcs that were shown that I had
figured out not because I am a clever bird but because it was pretty
obvious. Priests are always bank robbers for real.
A
group of people start arriving at the El Royale. This salesman that
is obviously not an actual salesman is there and getting no service.
A priest shows up. A singer shows up. A hippie shows up. The only guy
working there comes out looking all kinds of disheveled and they
begin to sign in requesting specific rooms in some cases. The
salesman is an FBI agent and starts finding bugs all over the room
and removing them. He also calls his family at home so I know he is
gonna die. He ends up finding this secret room that allows you to
peep into every other room through the mirror. The singer is singing.
I thought she was a killer because she had so many carpets. The
priest is digging up the floor. The hippie has a young girl bound and
gagged. He finds the employee knocked out from using drugs. He tells
his superiors but they only care about finding a tape. Okay then.
The
priest shows up at the singers room and compliments her. He invites
her for a meal and drink and after he spikes her drink she busts his
head open with a bottle. The employee finds the priest and shows him
the secret room. This gets confusing to write out because the story
jumps back and forth a lot. This felt like a less funny Four Rooms.
If you have not seen that movie do yourself a damned favor. Its
great. The FBI guys tries to save the young girl who is super calm
about shit and ends up getting shot by the hippie. The employee gets
hit with buck shot in the face. The singer sees all this and makes a
deal with the priest to split this money hidden in the floors. Turns
out he is a former bank robber and years ago (shown in a scene at the
beginning of the film) his partner was shot. The priest is also
losing his marbles and forgets shit.
In
terms of other backstory the singer gets treated like shit because it
is the 60's and she is a Black woman and just wants a way out. The
little girl that was kidnapped is the hippies sister and brainwashed.
She made a call to this guy who turns out to best the second best
thing about this movie. Loved the singer. She was the ONLY thing I
enjoyed about that horrible movie Widows and her face makes me happy.
This cult leader shows up and it looks great. He is very Manson-like
and they capture everyone. They show the backstory of the employee.
He is a really good actor by the way. He was an expert sniper and
does not want to kill anymore. After some crazy back and forth, some
more deaths, and escapes the movie ends. Only two people make it out
of the hotel alive and I was fine with it. And this. Went full gay for five seconds.
I
think this movie would have actually benefited from being linear. The
FBI guy was not involved enough so they had to rush showing how
shitty he was to everyone he came across. The cult stuff is its own
film waiting to never be made. The hippie was just meh. The singer
was good in every scene she did. The priests story was something out
of another movie and did not quite fit the tone of this. Maybe that
was the point. The employees story was good but he spent so much time
cowering and whimpering that it felt sort of forced. I actually said
“The fuck...?” when they showed him killing folks. There are
questions I have about the hotel but I don't care enough to even
watch videos explaining what they could possible be. Is it JFK or MLK
on the tape having sex? Don't care. I watched this on HBO. You can
watch this and look up when something sounds interesting.
Jeff
Bridges as Donald "Dock” O'Kelly/Daniel Flynn
Cynthia
Erivo as Darlene Sweet
Dakota
Johnson as Emily Summerspring
Jon
Hamm as Dwight Broadbeck/'Laramie' Seymour Sullivan
Cailee
Spaeny as Rose Summerspring
Lewis
Pullman mas Miles Miller
Chris
Hemsworth as Billy Lee
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