Review of Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) by Romethesecondti — 26 Jul 2019

There is reason to believe that “Bad Times” could have been a very good film. The contained, isolated setting (think “The Shining”) is worthy: a stylish mid-century motel, once a haven for gamblers and the Rat Pack, and the site, as it turns out, of perverse activity. The motel is empty as the film opens, its gambling license gone, its only employee the meek Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman).

“Bad Times” has other virtues. Like Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 “Pulp Fiction,” it employs time as a creative device, moving between past and present in clever and revealing ways. “Bad Times” even has a theme, an idea that runs through it from beginning to end. That theme is choice, and it’s introduced early on, when Miles explains to the new arrivals that the El Royale sits on the border between California and Nevada, and that the guests can choose a room in either state—“hope and opportunity to the East, warmth and sunshine to the West”–descriptions that seem to reverse the state stereotypes and ironize the idea of informed choice. There's mayhem at the end. Not everyone dies, but there’s enough killing to vitiate the strengths and subtleties of “Bad Times”—that is, to damage what could have been a very good film.