It's Right There in the TItle

This weekend, I thought I'd have a fun romp with a stylish looking new movie, Bad Times at the El Royale. It's the brain child of Drew Goddard, a man with a long list of TV and movie credits -- most compellingly (for me) as the co-writer and director of The Cabin in the Woods. It seemed like I could be in for a treat.

Set in 1970, the movie takes place at a rundown hotel on the border of California and Nevada, where a group of strangers happen to arrive on the same night for a twisty tale of shadiness and trouble. I didn't want to scratch any deeper on that, as the mystery seemed like part of the appeal. The cast was also incentive enough, an ensemble including Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Nick Offerman, Chris Hemsworth, and some skillful lesser-knowns.

Unfortunately, what I felt like a Quentin Tarantino cover band -- and they weren't even playing the hits.

That's not entirely accurate. Bad Times at the El Royale feels a lot like Pulp Fiction, which most would argue is Tarantino's greatest hit. This movie steals all the key gimmicks: long and unbroken takes on dialogue-heavy scenes, characters slowly revealed as the narrative bobs around to focus on them, playing with overlapping time, a Macguffin at the heart of the story that's never fully explained, sudden violence to release tension. This movie is at least two-parts Pulp Fiction. The rest is The Hateful Eight (strangers happen to gather in the wrong place at the wrong time), to a degree that I'd have thought Jeff Bridges would have read the script and thought, "I've done this before."

By "not playing the hits," I mean this Tarantino pastiche learns the wrong lessons from Tarantino. Scenes all go on a bit too long. The opening act is too languid as it shambles vaguely in the direction of a plot that doesn't seem to start until too far into the movie. Nobody is who they say they are, which ultimately makes you lose interest in finding out the full truth to any of them.

Visually, at least, the movie does capture that Tarantino crackle. Memorable images abound, from a hotel lobby divided in half along the state border, to characters getting soaked in a torrential downpour, to the creepy effect of the masks worn by a trio of characters in a key flashback. Some of the visuals are probably a bit too on the nose, but they make for arresting pictures nonetheless.

The actors all seem to be having fun too. Jeff Bridges blends his prickly old coot and kindly mentor schticks in one character (maybe that opportunity was the appeal). Jon Hamm has fun embracing and subverting his Mad Men persona over the course of the film. Chris Hemsworth struts around playfully, abs on display for every quite possibly frame of the film he's in. Tony winner Cynthia Erivo gets to deploy her considerable singing talents to great effect. Lewis Pullman brings heft to perhaps the most interesting of the "characters with a secret back story."

But more than anything, this film will test your patience. If you have it, you might find a fair amount to like about it -- particularly if you just can't get enough of Quentin Tarantino's eight films (and you dread the thought that he'll really retire after ten, as he's announced). For the rest of us, it's definitely rental at best, so you can watch at home and bail more easily if your patience runs out. I give Bad Time at the El Royale a C.