All roads lead to the El Royale. More accurately, all roads tend to end at the El Royale. The El Royale is a hotel that straddles the border between California and Nevada in Lake Tahoe. The hotel was a bustling attraction in the late fifties and early sixties. But it is the late sixties or early seventies and the luster is long gone. The Nevada side of the hotel lost its gaming license, removing one of the primary reasons that this aging hotel managed to draw customers. With the casino out of business, the hotel is down to one employee, Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman). Which seems to be plenty on a routine day.
One deadly night at the El Royale sees the convergence of stories told through the lens of room numbers. The Honeymoon Suite houses a curious G-man posing as an appliance salesman (Dwight/Laramie, played by Jon Hamm). Room four houses Father Flynn/Dock O'Kelly (Jeff Bridges) an ex-con with Alzheimer's disease. Flynn is searching for money hidden beneath the floor boards a decade earlier. If only he can recall which room. Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) is in room five. Sweet is a struggling singer who has a gig in Reno tomorrow. If she can survive tonight. Room seven houses sisters Emily (Dakota Johnson) and Rose (Cailee Spaeny) who appear to be on the run from a cult-like leader in California. That cult leader, Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth) is headed toward the El Royale for a night of reckoning, as the El Royale is destined to give up her own secrets. In a dance of confession and redemption, the characters provide a voyeuristic view into buried secrets.
Bad Times at the El Royale seems to be more about the journey than the destination. It is a character study. The story weaves together lives that become intertwined on a dark, rainy night at a secluded hotel. The story meanders at times, trying to connect the vignettes from perspectives the knit together each of the stories into a broader fabric. The method works, but it bogs down a bit in the process at times. The characters are each given a short history, which helps inform the story and create a vignette type approach, which enriches the character while diverting from the main narrative arc. It worked, but it wasn't as tight as it could have been. I ended up enjoying the characters while feeling a bit distracted at times. It ended up being an interesting tale with a dark climax that added value to the film, making it worthwhile in the end. The story was written and directed by Drew Goddard who wrote the screenplays for several films I thoroughly enjoyed, including Cabin in the woods, World War Z and The Martian.
As a story that relies on rich characters, casting was essential. This film managed to deliver in that respect. The casting adequately delivered characters that added credibility to the story. Jon Hamm was a bit over-the-top initially, but he seemed believable as a Hoover-era special agent. Jeff Bridges is a perennial favorite. He is rarely bad. He really sold the idea that he was suffering in the early stages of Alzheimer's. He managed to be both criminal and likable at the same time. He also managed a credible relationship with Erivo's character. The two become a focal point of the story, so their chemistry was essential. The pair worked well together. But two actors who stood out to me in this film were Pullman as the troubled hotel clerk and Hemsworth as an evil cult leader. Pullman seemed weak, but was credible when a darker story of his past emerged. Hemsworth had an odd swagger as the charismatic leader of a hippie cult. I could almost smell the hemp and patchouli.
Bad Times at the El Royale earned an R rating for some brief full frontal nudity, language, drinking and violence. For the most part, this film is violent. There are quite a few deaths depicted in the film. The film also features a bit of graphic drug use. The content was contextual, although the nudity seemed a bit odd. It was very subdued and easy to miss in the background of the cult compound. The drug use was depicted a bit more dramatically. The content is fine for teen audiences or better. Most people will miss the nudity altogether. And the other aspects of this film seem to be pretty common on television and video games today. The film felt a bit long, with a run time that stretched two hours, 21 minutes. I think it could have been pared down a bit with tighter editing.
Bad Times as the El Royale is not Drew Goddard's best work. But it is an interesting story. I liked the characters and felt that the ending helped justify the time I had invested in the film. It was a bit long, with pacing that trudged forward at times. The approach worked, but also helped bog the story down. The apex of the film drew the elements together nicely, creating an intense finale that included an ending that made the journey worthwhile. While not perfect, this film was worth seeing at the theater. I have seen a few mediocre films recently. This one was redemptive. In more ways than one. Worth a matinee viewing at the theater. 7.5/10.
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