Review of Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) by Don L — 16 Oct 2018

If Quentin Tarantino became a born again Christian, I imagine his upcoming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood film would go a little something like this. Set in a motel on the California-Nevada border, this close-quarters neo-noir boasts plenty of style, but director Drew Goddard's decision to stretch the runtime out adds surprisingly little characterization to the impressive cast and their admittedly dynamic performances. One would assume that the split-state setting of the motel would be used more to highlight the duplicitous nature of each character in their group of strangers brought together by chance, but this theme is surprisingly underutilized.

Instead the motel appears to be a stand in for purgatory, and maybe for some, hell. What we are treated to is a series of unveiling's regarding each character's backstory divided into chapters according to their room. None of these stories intertwine up to that point or foreshadow their redemptive arcs in this place, but they nonetheless give you some context as to their motivations. However, their motivations and actions just happen regardless of who they are, and I found there was at least one major action that each character did that seemed out of place or only there to convenience the plot.

The movie seems so fully content with explaining how something occurred that at times it complete disregards why. Noir has always relied on the twists and turns that keep audience members guessing up til the end, and that's inarguably one of the most fun aspects of the genre. But where the best mysteries will start at "A" and naturally arrive at "Z" without much issue, Bad Times at the El Royale relies on a perfect syzygy of events and actions to reach its conclusion. I'm not saying these twists need to be realistic, but they at least need to be rational. As Star Wars: The Last Jedi has proven, surprising an audience simply by defying expectations is a lazy and frustrating method of storytelling and no less so with this film.

The fact that it climaxes with a literal "come to Jesus" moment only makes the film seem even more confused. It wants to be classic noir mystery mixed with quirky Coen brother's violent comedy, then it is trying to be a rumination on the late 60s zeitgeist with added ultraviolence. But the fact that it seems to take seriously the ersatz salvation of character who has killed 120+ people by absolution from a fake priest? Gimme a break.

The Christian overtones are only bolstered by Chris Hemsworth's GQ Charlie Manson character, an antagonistic gnostic who espouses self-determinism, moral relativism, free thinking, oh, and random murder. The earnest attempt at an emotional conclusion mixed with the gleefully gun-heavy gore makes for some odd tonal and ideological dissonance, but much like The Boondock Saints, the more you think about it, the less you'll enjoy it. As for anyone calling this a deconstruction of the noir genre, they must be confusing that term for "randomly rehashed tropes".