Bad Times At The El Royale

(MA15+) ★★★

Director: Drew Goddard.

Cast:  Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman, Cailee Spaeny, Chris Hemsworth, Nick Offerman.

Even the bear was intrigued.

Drew Goddard's CV is beyond solid. He wrote Cloverfield, World War Z and earned an Oscar nom for his screenplay for The Martian. He penned episodes of Buffy, Angel, Alias and Lost. He was the brains behind the TV series Daredevil for Netflix. And he wrote and directed the excellent meta-horror The Cabin In The Woods.

After all that, there were big expectations for his second writer/director effort Bad Times At The El Royale. And five minutes in, those hopes were still riding high.

But slowly, but surely, the magic ebbs out of this neo-noir. Its colourful set-up ends up painting the film into a corner, and despite some steady surprises, the story can't sustain its brilliance.

That story kicks off with a group of strangers arriving at the hotel of the title, which sits astride the border between Nevada and California. There's vacuum cleaner salesman Laramie Sullivan (Hamm), gentle priest Father Flynn (Bridges), soul singer Darlene Sweet (Erivo), and the no-nonsense Emily (Johnson).

Each of these visitors carries a secret amid their luggage, and all of those secrets are about to be uncovered on one fateful, stormy night.

As far as first acts go, El Royale's is a doozy. Goddard's opening scene is simple, succinct and attention-grabbing, and as the guests start to check in, you'll be captivated by the dialogue and the talented ensemble delivering it. This continues as the skeletons start to emerge from the metaphorical closets, and the bullets and blood begin to fly.

The tension builds to a boiling point, but things bubble over at the end of the second act and nothing is quite the same. The last act pushes the already strange happenings into full-on Crazy Town as the story searches (unsatisfactorily) for an ending.

It pains me to say it, but things go wrong when Hemsworth turns up. His character, while intriguing, is not right for him - his performance lacks the necessary mix of danger and charisma, of sex and violence. It's not all his fault - the script uses his character as a kind of fix-all for the story's end problems, throwing him into proceedings at their most desperate hour, unsuccessfully.

The film crawls to the finish like a wounded dog, which is a disappointment after having run such a good race. Bridges, Erivo, and relative newcomer Pullman (son of Bill) help get it across the line, but the fact is the end is nowhere near as strong as the start.

It's a shame. The cast is great (Hamm is also worth mentioning), the production design and music are excellent, and the set-up is strong. There's a mild Tarantino vibe going on, although he and Goddard are probably just borrowing from the same places most likely. Goddard is also not as flashy as QT and seems happy to sit back and let the story and killer ensemble do the work.

This is probably why it's such a shame that this Strangers In A Hotel goes off the rails in the final leg. With so much riding on the story, when things go wrong, they really go wrong. A lot goes right too, and for the most part this is good fun, but Bad Times At The El Royale doesn't quite check out.