Film Review - Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Bad Times at the El Royale is written and directed by Drew Goddard and concerns a lounge singer (Cynthia Ervio), a priest (Jeff Bridges), two young women (Dakota Johnson and Cailee Spaeny) and a vacuum salesman (Jon Hamm) all come to the El Royale hotel which is a Bi State hotel between Nevada and California but all is not quite what it seems.

I did not like this movie very much I’m afraid and have likened to calling it “Diet Tarantino” as a nod to Diet Coke for this movie so desperately wants to be a Hateful Eight type of movie where a group of strangers come to a secluded place, their stuck there and things get very twisty and turny about why their there and what they want to do.

And Quentin can pull off that kind of film as he is a great screenwriter that can blend jukebox soundtracks, extreme violence and snappy dialogue that balances the tones of being fun and serious and direct those actors in a way that really seems to bring out the best in them in his films Mr Goddard is not that kind of director and it really shows in this film as the extreme violence moments come out of nowhere and land with a thud (and I love MA15 violence) and the jukebox soundtrack and snazzy dialogue just feel very out of place.

And I loved the Martian in 2015 which Mr Goddard wrote but this feels like a major step back, now as for the performances Ms Ervio and Ms Johnson really shine best here as both of them get a lot of meaty screen time and develop their characters well as for Mr Bridges well he kinda just does the Jeff Bridges thing same with Jon Hamm but the biggest waste is Chris Hemsworth now I love this man and wish he would get some of the opportunities Mel Gibson got at the height of his stardom (Hamlet, Maverick, Air America for example) but I thought he was terrible here as this flower child hippie type of character who shows off his abs and I didn’t like him here.

And so that was Bad Times at the El Royale aka Diet Tarantino and in all honesty wait for the Classic Tarantino to come out next year with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, 1 out of 5.