This movie premiered in Indonesian cinemas yesterday but unfortunately it did not play in the theaters near our home. So we ended up seeing this movie today at the cinema which is one of our favorites on Saturdays since they provided bank promotions for the tickets. And because there were multiple movies we could choose, we also had movie marathon after quite a while. Well let us get on with the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Story was set in the year 1969 in the hotel El Royale which was unique due to its location in the California and Nevada border. Half of the hotel rooms were located in California state while the others were in Nevada. A priest named Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges - Kingsman: The Golden Circle, True Grit etc), a backup singer named Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo - Widows) and a salesman named Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm - Baby Driver, Beirut etc) wanted to stay at the hotel. With the addition of another woman who later on would be revealed as Emily (Dakota Johnson - Fifty Shades trilogy, Black Mass etc) they all stayed in the rooms number Four, Five, One and Seven respectively.
It turned out that all these guests have their own hidden agenda in this hotel. The hotel employee named Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman - The Strangers: Prey at Night) apparently had his own secret. It would be revealed also later about the existence of a young girl called Rosie (Cailee Spaeny - Pacific Rim Uprising) in the hotel. Finally there was also the mysterious guy called Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth - Thor trilogy, The Huntsman: Winter's War etc). All these 7 people's lives would be changed on that day.
So how would the story unfold and what secrets were they having? Find them all in this uniquely done thriller movie.
End of Brief Story Line
OK, when I saw the trailer to this film, I thought this seemed like an interesting movie. And the first half of the movie I thought was quite great. It was very cool the way the movie progressed as we were shown what was happening in each room. We were shown from the perspective of each individual and through some nice editing & direction, there was one occurrence which was shown from various angles which I thought was awesomely done. You would know what I meant if you have seen this film.
Now the progress of the movie was quite steady at first and we were kept wondering the mystery surrounding the hotel, and the people's secrets which were slowly revealed to us. However, there were times which I thought was a bit draggy, especially the singing scenes. Now I admit that Cynthia Eviro was a great singer and her singing were wonderful. But I could not help to feel that it was overly used. There were parts which I thought could be shown a bit shorter, although that might just be me. And once the movie reached its 1.5 hour mark, I suddenly felt the movie too long. My wife felt the quality a bit drifted when the focus was shifted to one of the 7 characters (for me I thought it was probably because the character was a bit annoying).
The duration of 141 minutes to me felt too long, probably because of some scenes that I felt were unnecessary. It was a good thing that the ending was quite surprising and revealed something that was refreshing and provided an amazing finale. (No mid or post end credit scene here). If only they had shorten the movie a bit, it would probably be just perfect. Oh even though I said the singing scenes were a bit much, the songs in the movie were pretty awesome. There were some popular songs from 60s which had been remade such as Can't Take My Eyes off You or Unchained Melody. And the musical background plus the sound effects were quite satisfying. Sometimes my wife and I could be a bit surprised by the sound of gunshot or glass shattered and so on.
The premise of showing one scene from multiple angle was actually not something new. However, in here, the story was combined with some rather disturbing scenes and probably some violent scenes that surely were cut by the Indonesian membership body. (I only noticed 1 of them, not sure if there were any more). Anyway, good thing was it did not impact the story itself as we could still understood the movie. For a movie that had this kind of story, it was understandable that the tone was dark and serious as well as mysterious. There was only a very very brief amusing scene but other than that, I personally felt it was a bit heavy (and sorry to say, slightly boring towards the final moments). There was one quite emotional moment that my wife was affected.
Overall I think this movie which was written and directed by Drew Goddard (his past writing credits included Cloverfield, World War Z and Cabin in the Woods which he also directed) was quite interesting. It had a promising start and managed to keep us interested till more than half of the movie, but somehow it became a bit draggy though we were still intrigued till the very end. Audience who are not accustomed to this kind of mystery thriller genre with little action and a pace that could feel a bit too slow, might not enjoy it. But those who want to see something different or wanted to see some smart quite sophisticated movie, might love it. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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