Film Review: ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’: Can an Unqualified Priest Absolve America’s Sins?

R | 2h 21min | Mystery , Thriller | 12 October 2018 (USA)

“Bad Times at the El Royale” has lots of stuff we appreciate about our movie culture: how it romanticizes seedy hotels, Americana, all things art deco, retro, neon, and juke-boxy.

Noir and Tarantino-ish, “Bad Times” opens at a snail’s pace, takes a good long while to pick up the pace, and is ultimately overlong and too violent.

Any redeeming qualities, other than some nice visuals? Not really. Well OK, the idea of redemption is always an excellent topic. Oh, and yet another star gets born.

This is the fourth star in the last couple of weeks: Lady Gaga as actor, Bradley Cooper as director, Jonah Hill as director, and now “Bad Times” elevates Tony-winner (for “The Color Purple”) Cynthia Erivo to brand-new movie-star status.

El Royale, Based on a True Hotel

The prologue starts with a man (Nick Offerman) depositing a cash stash under the floorboards of an El Royale room, probably in the 1960s.

Since that’s 10 years before the real action begins, “real time” is in the early ‘70s, judging by the ’69 Dodge Charger that Dakota Johnson’s character squeals up in, sideways.

The El Royale sits directly on the state line between Nevada and California, which means, in cutesy, old-timey, novelty Americana fashion, that you can stay either in Nevada or in the more-expensive-by-one-dollar California rooms.

The gambling happens, naturally, on the Lake Tahoe side (Nevada), because gambling is legal there. The hotel is modeled on Frank Sinatra’s actual 1960s Cal Neva Resort & Casino.

El Royale No Longer Royal

Once a hotspot for jet-setters, Hollywood royalty, the D.C. political-power set, and Rat Pack and gangster connections, the gambling license has been revoked, and the hotel’s in a state of slow disrepair. There’s one kid, the shy desk clerk (Lewis Pullman), servicing the entire place. He’s maid service, bartender, barista, maintenance, and so on.

One night, six strangers show up to the otherwise vacant El Royale. They are Laramie Seymour Sullivan, who is a blowhard-windbag, traveling vacuum-cleaner salesman (Jon Hamm sporting a subpar Southern accent); and Father Flynn, an early-onset Alzheimer’s-suffering whisky priest (Jeff Bridges).

(L-R) Jon Hamm, Jeff Bridges, and Cynthia Erivo star in “Bad Times at the El Royale.” (Kimberley French/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

Darlene Sweet’s a seen-it-all, African-American journeywoman-lounge-singer  (Cynthia Erivo). (The character is loosely based on real-life pop star Darlene Love.) Then there’s Emily Summerspring, a shotgun-toting hippie chick (Dakota Johnson); and Ruth Summerspring, Emily’s kid sister (Cailee Spaeny), whom Emily kidnapped off a cult compound.

Dakota Johnson stars in “Bad Times at the El Royale.” (Kimberley French/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

And finally, there’s Billy Lee: a Charles Manson-like, charismatic, sadistic cult leader sporting a definitely non-period set of washboard abs (Chris Hemsworth).

Chris Hemsworth stars in “Bad Times at the El Royale.” (Kimberley French/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

El Royale Downright Sordid

The hotel’s got pervy hidden corridors sporting one-way mirrors. Films have been shot by management for blackmail purposes. You really don’t want to know the extent of the depravity that’s gone on in these rooms, but we’re later given a brief insight.

That money is still under the floor in that room. Why are these people acting all cagey? And why is the mousey clerk acting a lot like Norman Bates from “Psycho”?

The motel’s black-and-white television intermittently blares static-y Hoover-era paranoia, real Vietnam War footage and anti-war protests, and the cultishness and waves of brutality America occasionally spawns. Sound familiar?

Does it also sound familiar that the hotel is divided by a state line, seeing as how California’s a blue state and Nevada’s sort of a red one? Obviously, the El Royale is meant to be a metaphor for America. It was once great, but can the El Royale be made great again? To most, it looks to be in a state of hopeless decay and getting worse by the day.

The Norman Bates kid turns out to have seen the most horrific things, snooping in the pervy hotel corridors, but he was also a war hero, like a Vietnam-era Chris Kyle (American sniper hero). He wants more than anything to be absolved of his sins. But the only one who can absolve him is the boozy priest, who, it turns out, is not a priest. That’s not a spoiler—it’s in the trailer.

Jeff Bridges stars in “Bad Times at the El Royale.” (Kimberley French/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

Is that maybe like one particular view of America’s leadership at this time? A leader not qualified to absolve sins and make the El Royale great again? Here’s the one nice thing in the movie: He absolves the kid anyway, and it works.

Is it worth wading through two and a half hours of hyperviolent, Tarantino-wannabe territory to arrive at this mildly hopeful suggestion that our country might burn down the metaphorical hotel that sits on a blue/red dividing state line, and that unqualified leaders can absolve us of sins, and it will work? No. The best thing about “Bad Times at the El Royale” is Erivo’s singing. Get the soundtrack, skip the movie.

Jeff Bridges stars in “Bad Times at the El Royale.” (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ Director: Drew Goddard Starring: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Nick Offerman Rated: R Running Time: 2 hours, 21 minutes Release Date: Oct. 12 Rated 2.5 stars out of 5