It feels a bit weird writing one of these on a Tuesday but just like comfort zones and participation trophies, self-imposed deadlines are for losers. Apologies if either your Monday was ruined by a distinct lack of griping or indeed your Tuesday is now a total wash because Anger in a Man Suit is a day late and everything is going to Hell in a hand basket faster than it takes your average billionaire to shift his base of operations to Europe and his untold millions to an off-shore account in Panama.
I had quite the full weekend this weekend, which did contribute to my spectacular failure to write this ahead of time. Turns out I'm not great at adventure golf, which I assume you can no longer call crazy golf because it's offensive to crazy people, because I'm much more of a 'brute force and ignorance' sport kinda guy and I find finesse a very difficult concept to grasp, let alone put into practice wielding a rubberised putter and hefting a tiny neon orange ball around a series of Indiana Jones inspired links. It was at least much less objectionable than proper golf which to me is the epitome of sporting tedium and in the absence of medication practically the best way to guarantee an afternoon nap known to man. Not to mention (he says, mentioning) that it appears that a decent proportion of people who go to watch golf live are apparently dullards, incapable of keeping themselves from uttering obnoxious drivel at every available opportunity, opportune or not. Forgive my naivety, but I'm fairly sure screeching 'get in the hole' is not likely to help anyone's putting game from on the green, let alone from a tee off 500 yards away. Leave it out, your incorrigible bores.
Such digressions aside, I did manage to fill my brain meats with a couple of cinematic delights, so if I can get my arse in gear, I might be able to get ahead of myself. Fortuitously, they were none of them too terrible which puts me in the enviable position of being chipper for once. Wonders never cease.
Bad Times at El Royale snuck under the radar to a certain extent. The trailer looked pretty good, with promises of 60's kitsch, noir-ish mystery and a very respectable cast. All too often nowadays, trailers give more answers than they do ask questions and ruin the movie for everyone. Not so here, with a snappy teaser that was genuinely interesting. I can't say I'm a massive fan of Drew Goddard's previous work: Cloverfield was good but Marmite, Cabin in the Woods was decent enough, but everyone fapped over it and I couldn't get that invested. Fair to middling, let's say that. Good news is that El Royale is a fine, if over-looked, bit of cinema and I think the best thing he's done.
El Royale is very twisty, as all good noir thrillers should be, but lays its cards on the table in quick fashion; John Hamm's periodically accurate misogynist/slightly racist Hoover salesman is all cringeworthy charm, Jeff Bridges' slightly off-kilter priest seems harmless enough and Cynthia Erivo is jittery enough to let you know she's running from something. The beauty of the script is that literally nobody is what they seem; everyone (and I really do mean everyone) has an ulterior motive, secret agenda or closet full of skeletons that slowly unfolds even right up until the final moments of the movie. Now I'd be a real dick if I spoiled any of that, because that's what makes it so compelling, so you really are going to need to get your eyeballs on it. For all the twists and turns (some of which are more telegraphed than others) it all hangs together and stays pretty easy to follow. We get to see the same events form a couple of different perspectives but never repetitively and there are some genuine shocks; not everybody makes it out alive, and it's fair to say that theatrical reputation has no bearing on when or how. Even right down to the last act, it's well-crafted rug after well-crafted rug being pulled out from under you.
El Royale earns its stripes by simply not being what you might expect it to be. The trailer gives you no real clues at all as to how this is all going to play out and every time the film gives you a clue, it's not even remotely what you were expecting. Even the hotel, separated over state lines between Nevada and California (you pay an extra dollar for the California rooms, just because its California) is not what it seems and has been hiding some fairly sordid secrets of its own. It's even difficult to nail down a genre; it's part detective thriller, part heist movie, part whodunnit, part lord knows what else. If this were a Shyamalan picture it would be a jumbled mess of a movie and the third act would have ruined everything with some random deus ex machina, sci-fi bollocks; when Chris Hemsworth shows up at the El Royale, late for the party and channelling his best Charlie Manson it just puts a nice satisfying cap on everything. Wisely though, they eschewed tattooing a swastika on his forehead.
It's a genuine shame this didn't get more hype when it got released at the cinema. I fully intended to go and see it, but it pulled a Kaiser Soze and just like that: it was gone. I didn't even realise it was out on DVD until I stumbled across it in ASDA doing a food shop. It's not so dense that you have to keep a notepad on hand to scribble down what's going on, but it is worth paying attention to what's unfolding and if you do your reward is a quirky but excellently done period thriller.
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