Review by C.J. Bunce

Billed as a thriller, Bad Times at El Royale arrived back in 2018–before the pandemic–but to little fanfare.  A closed-room neo noir crime opera in the vein of Quentin Tarentino’s movies, its spark is due to writer-director Drew Goddard’s freedom with a stunning palette.  That’s Jeff Bridges (True Grit, Hell or High Water, Tron), Cynthia Erivo (The Outsider, Harriet, Genius), Jon Hamm (Baby Driver, Top Gun: Maverick), Dakota Johnson (Madame Web), and Chris Hemsworth (Thor, The Hunstman: Winter’s War, Extraction) and a stylish setting.

But that’s not why we’re revisiting it today.  The movie is also a breakout role for Lewis Pullman, star of last week’s new Stephen King adaptation Salem’s Lot.  If you want to know this actor better, you’ll want to check it out.

It’s 1969.  Four strangers check into the El Royale, a hotel that is a mix of Las Vegas glitz and any decent-sized vacation destination of the 1960s.  The hotel literally straddles the California-Nevada border, a quirky choice that only begins the oddities in the story.  The movie feels like an experimental film.  Parts of the advertising and old-fashioned silent era chapter cards that carry viewers forward may have you thinking El Royale is something like Four Rooms, another movie about crime and a hotel.  It’s nothing like that, and yet you might find a few beats in common.  It’s not creepy like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, but the hotel also is practically its own character.  Neither is this John Wick or Hotel Artemis, but they all should stack together on the same video store shelf.

Yet Bad Times at the El Royale holds its own.

Bridges plays Daniel Flynn, an elder preacher.  Erivo portrays Darlene Sweet, a promising singer whose success is blocked by others.  Hamm is Laramie Seymour Sullivan, a fast-talking vacuum cleaner salesman.  Johnson is Emily, a woman trying to rescue her sister (Cailee Spaeny) from a drug-dealing cult leader.  Hemsworth is a madman after revenge.  Pullman is Miles, the boy scout-like front desk clerk, who recites a special spiel about the hotel’s split-state status.

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But why is Flynn there?  Why is Sullivan there right now?  And who would you have on your side if you had to fight for your life to get out of there?

Writer-director Drew Goddard first came on the scene writing for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, then J.J. Abrams projects Alias, Lost, and Cloverfield, followed by The Martian movie and Netflix’s Daredevil before his current stint on High Potential (reviewed here last week).  This explains how Bad Times at the El Royale is both hip and fresh, and why it also brings the style.

It’s a slower paced Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez dark tale.  Key to the vibe and authenticity of the movie is its soundtrack by Michael Giacchino, but even greater is the influence of Goddard’s selection of 1960s rock, pop, and R&B songs, which create the historical ambiance as much as the costumes, set design colors, and period fabrics.  Erivo does double duty, belting out some smooth renditions of several popular songs.  Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography and the set might recall the remote lair of Kingsman: The Golden Circle.  McGarvey knows how to frame his scenes.  It’s hard to believe the sprawling hotel isn’t real–it’s a set in Canada, but looks like a place you visited in your distant past on your way to one of the national parks.

Blink and you’ll miss Nick Offerman in a flashback scene.

It’s the rare instance where the least charismatic player is Chris Hemsworth.  Watch it for Goddard’s work, or if you’re a fan of any of the actors, especially for Lewis Pullman.  Bad Times at the El Royale is now streaming on Prime Video.