(3 / 4)
The chaotic unpredictability of the premise combined with a perfectly cast all-star ensemble makes the El Royale well-worth checking into.
Bad Times at the El Royale is the latest mystery thriller from writer and director Drew Goddard (Cloverfield, The Cabin in the Woods) featuring a star-studded cast including the likes of Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, and Chris Hemsworth. The story is set sometime during the 1970s where we are presented with the “El Royale,” a dubious hotel that seems to operate as a safe haven for individuals of questionable morality.
The twisty tale takes its time to properly establish the main players as we become acclimated with a suspiciously friendly priest, (Jeff Bridges), an aspiring singer (Cynthia Erivo), a loquacious vacuum salesman (Jon Hamm), and an aloof, free-spirited woman on the run (Dakota Johnson). Eventually the sole hotel worker, Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman), appears and explains the hotel’s novelty of being located on the border of the states of Nevada and California as well as the perks and amenities offered for the different available rooms.
Bad Times is a story that is designed to keep the viewer in the dark for as long as possible. Without going into the spoilery specifics, the story eventually introduces us to an even larger roster of unsavory visitors (Chris Hemsworth, Cailee Spaeny). Each character is more mysterious than the last, as each has a dark secret they are fighting to hide. The truth of each backstory is revealed to the audience over the course of the film with vignette sequences interspersed throughout.
In addition to the characters, the very location of the “El Royale” hotel itself is equally shady and menacing to the characters. The locale quickly reveals itself to be more than meets the eye as there is something far more sinister lurking beneath the building’s affable façade. This sense of dark mystery infiltrating every aspect of the story makes for a prime neo-noir tale, whereby you are constantly wondering how the story will swerve next and which player will end up on top by the end.
As with his directorial debut, The Cabin in the Woods, Goddard is once again discontent with presenting the tale in an overly straightforward manner. Each time it seems as though you have the story pegged, the audience is introduced to an even more mysterious or morally corrupt individual who makes the former members feel less threatening by comparison. The story is akin to a stew, where with each new ingredient that is tossed in the entirety of the story shifts. This chaotic mayhem makes for an engrossing watch, as there was no point in the narrative where I felt confident of what was to come next.
Bad Times draws heavily from many of Quentin Tarantino’s past films. Aside from much of the film being extremely dialogue heavy, the premise of several mysterious strangers being confined to one location closely resembles Tarnatino’s The Hateful Eight. Additionally, the film’s manipulation of the narrative’s linearity strongly harkens back to Pulp Fiction. The clear inspiration from Tarantino is not an issue, however, the vignette structure for revealing each character’s backstory somewhat kills the dramatic tension during the film’s third-act. The story would have benefitted from cutting down on the number of expository flashbacks or presenting them all earlier in the film, as what began as an effective novelty begins to make the pace languid towards the end.
Despite some of the questionable storytelling decisions, Bad Times at the El Royale is every bit the mysteriously seedy jigsaw puzzle of a noir thriller that it is purporting itself to be. With a narrative that is impossible to pin down and the all-star ensemble of perfectly casted characters, the “El Royale” is well-worth checking into.
