Bad Times at the El Royale, written and directed by Drew Goddard - Eight out of 10

Bad Times at the El Royale, written and directed by Drew Goddard

Eight out of 10

This is a very interesting and probably underestimated motion picture, which the critics have largely rated as mediocre, with a Metascore average of 60.

The legendary Jeff Bridges portrays what seems to be a priest in the opening scenes, Father Daniel Flynn, but we would later understand that he is actually a criminal called Dock O’Kelly, arrived at the El Royale, a motel near Lake Tahoe, which has one side located in Nevada and the other in California, with different prices, even separated as they are by line drawn through the construction.

Father Daniel Flynn – as we know him early in the film – meets with Darlene Sweet aka the excellent Cynthia Erivo, an African American singer that has had to face serious adversity and is moving to start on a rather unattractive singing job at nearby Reno, even if she should get outstanding offers to match her incredible skills and voice.

The other guest waiting to get a room near the reception is Laramie Seymour Sullivan aka the forward Jon Hamm, who is outspoken to the point of being obnoxious and who also has a hidden agenda, given that he is in fact an FBI agent, Dwight Broadbeck, who is checking at the El Royale in an official, if undisclosed, capacity.

As he looks through the honeymoon suite he had insisted he must have, the agent discovers first a series of tapping wires, in the phone, the walls, the mirror and then he finds that a surveillance corridor is in use next to the rooms, where the mirrors are used to spy on clients and there is a camera to film what happens in one of the rooms and then blackmail victims.

As he walks the hidden corridor, special agent Broadbeck finds that in one of the rooms, the fourth guest to arrive that day, Emily Summerspring, who has signed the register with “fuck you”, has brought in an apparent victim of a kidnapping, a girl that is tied and placed on a chair.

When the FBI man talks with his superiors – J. Edgar Hoover himself – he explains about what he has found, that an abduction is under way in the place that has been budded by the owners and he is told to mind his own business, continue with his assigned task and “not to interfere”

Alas, Dwight Broadbeck disregards the orders – which we anyway wanted and perhaps expected him to do – and knocks at the door of the woman who seemed to be a violent, dangerous criminal.

He claims there is an emergency, then he kicks the door and knocks Emily Summerspring down on the carpet, near the bed and then unties Rose Summerspring – the public finds the stories of the different guest in the different rooms, then that of Billy Lee aka Chris Hemsworth.

The character of the special FBI agent is eliminated quite early, for Emily takes a shotgun, stands up from the floor, tells her sister – that is the connection that the unfolding of the tale reveals – to move away and blows a large hole into the chest of the man who had pretended to be a vacuum cleaner sales representative.

With that shot, she has also blown away the double mirror and into the corridor, she has injured Miles Miller aka the very good Lewis Pullman, the man who is receptionist, housemaid, bar tender and more importantly for the owners of the hotel, the one who operates the surveillance system and sends the films to an address where the vicious patrons take them and blackmail visitors with compromising material.

Meanwhile, Father Flynn drinks a lot at the bar where Darlene Sweet joins him, refusing in the first place to have drink, talking about her singing in the room, then accepting to have a whisky after the priest insists moves away and then smashes a bottle on his head, just as he was preparing to put narcotics into her glass.

The priest wakes up when Miles Miller comes at the bar and he wants a master key, escorts the receptionist – Man For All Seasons to look for it, and discovers the corridor, where the young man is severely hurt by the shot that killed the special agent and then is tied up by Emily Summerspring.

Darlene was trying to get away in her car, without success for Broadbeck had made the vehicles unusable for the purposes of his investigation, when she saw the killing of the agent, then she is faced by the priest who comes at her car.

Father Flynn explains that he is actually a criminal who has managed to take away a considerable sum, when they were cornered and has decided with his partners to come to this hotel and meet.

The agreement was to hide the money in a room at the El Royale, but he had been diagnosed with a deadly disease while in prison and he forgets things – indeed, at one point he forgets his own name.

Therefore, in the first instance, when asking for a room at the hotel, he forgot the correct number, the place where the money would be.

In the meantime, he knows that the room number was actually five and he needs the help of the singer to get the big prize.

Darlene would get half the money and that would represent a new start in life, if she believes the new story and accepts the proposal.

Things are evidently more complicated and another vile character enters the stage – Billy Lee aka Chris Hemsworth.

The motion picture is more than satisfying, although it was passed at the Golden Globes nominations and may miss on Academy Awards as well.