Tag Archives: Pulp Fiction

Bad Time at the El Royale

13 Oct

‘Bad Times at the El Royale’: You can check in, then suspect no one in this noir gets out alive

 

By Tom Meek 

“Bad Times at the El Royale” is a knuckleball-noir, a den of thieves stuffed with double agendas. The star of the film, besides the ripped abs of Chris Hemsworth or sexy boot-wearing waif Cailee Spaeny, is the remote resort of the title, once a grand casino straddling California and Nevada (there’s a red line down the middle of the lobby, and you can drink only on the California side). It’s seen better days, but lost its gambling license. Needless to say, few people check in; by the time the movie is over, even fewer check out.

The time is the Nixon-tainted ’70s, so cellphones are not a thing, but wiretapping and one-way mirrors are. An amiable reverend (Jeff Bridges) and a backup soul singer (Cynthia Erivo) check in first. Then there’s Jon Hamm, right out of “Mad Men” as a vacuum cleaner salesman, and Dakota Johnson, who zips in Tarantino-hip in a mod model muscle car with a bound bundle in the trunk. Not everyone’s whom they pretend to be, and the skittish hotel manager (Lewis Pullman, son of Bill, excellent in a role that seems designed for the late Anton Yelchin) bears the weight of past horrors in the hotel and has demanding owners to answer to. The inn has a few secrets as well.

As the sands shift and the mother of all storms descends, the tension rises. What’s buried under the hotel? Who is the mysterious being fled by Johnson’s Emily Summerspring and her sister Ruth (Spaeny)? Plus there’s the gruesome murder of a couple nearby that we hear about over and over on TV, with the killer still on the loose. Deep Purple and some lesser-known Motown kick up the scene – something that’s needed, because at almost two and a half hours “El Royale” is nearly an hour too long (but stylish nonetheless). And though directed by Drew Goddard, whose debut, “Cabin in the Woods” (2012) was a breath of fresh air to the horror genre, the film overplays moments. The plot, which in premise bears much in common with James Mangold’s 2003 Nevada hotel thriller “Identity,” loses its enigmatic edge a little over halfway in, and many of the more likable souls perish far too soon. But fear not, everyone gets a flashback, and certain scenes get replayed from multiple POVs. They’re neat devices, but not every character comes out feeling fully sketched. 

Hemsworth, who played beautifully against his Thor persona in “Cabin in the Woods,” isn’t given much to do here as a Cali-sun god and cult leader – Jim Morrison infused with the cocky cold-bloodedness of Charles Manson. It’s a big, hammy bone, and it gets well gnawed. The camp mostly works, while Bridges and Johnson hold the fort, Spaeny and Pullman add flourishes of manic quirk and Erivo adds soul, social context and glorious chops. The Watergate fiasco and a MacGuffin that could be tied to JFK loom at the corners, but they’re mostly distractions; the film is best when characters sit and banter over whisky, even if their hands are tied and a gun is to their head.

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Mission: Impossible – Fallout

28 Jul

‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’: True thrills from aging series that knows to keep it real

 

By Tom Meek 
Image result for mission impossible fallout

There’s little new or fresh in the latest “Mission: Impossible” chapter, branded way too ominously  for its own good with the term “Fallout” (“Mission: Impossible – Fallout”). Its star, Tom Cruise, isn’t the spry chicken he was in “Risky Business” back in 1982; the television series the film franchise hangs on was a droll, thinking person’s staple back in the 1960s and 1970s; and the stunt work here is mostly old school. These aren’t three strikes, but a gold strike: Blending the three makes for the most exhilarating filmgoing experience of the summer, with Cruise doing most of his own stunts for the painstaking realism – and boy, does it show – and director Christopher McQuarrie choosing to do each crash-bang chase they way they used to when Bill Friedkin was lighting up the screen, eschewing CGI where any “Fast and Furious” helmer would jump in with a dual core processor and a green screen.

The plot’s not all that much to bite into – there’s three mobile nukes on the loose in Europe and IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise)  feels particularly responsible because he let the weapons out of his grasp by opting to save one of his own crew (). Because of said misstep, Hunt’s team is given a watchful CIA presence, a strong-jawed slab by the name of Walker (Henry Cavill, who dons the cape as Superman in a different franchise). In Paris and London there’s a sleek assassin on a motorbike (Rebecca Ferguson) tailing Hunt & Co., as well as a racy arms dealer (Vanessa Kirby, from “The Crown”) in the middle who, without batting an eyelash, whips a stiletto from her garter belt to dispatch an onrushing hitman. Oh yeah, Lane (Sean Harris), the anarchist terrier Hunt put away in his last outing, “Rogue Nation,” factors big into the mix as well.

Needless to say, it’s a crowded affair that reaches its crescendo atop sheer precipices in Kashmir, and while that copter-crashing cliffhanger works effectively – if you hate height like me, you may experience a few churns to the gut – it’s not as raw or adrenaline-pumping as Hunt running the rooftops in London to capture quarry, or the smackdown in a Paris men’s room where Hunt and Walker get their asses handed to them by a very able foe. The scenes are so invigorating that when they’re over you need to catch your breath. The film does too, and it’s in these moments that the lines of artifice to get to the next whopper of a stunt show some. You can tell Cruise and McQuarrie, the scribe behind “The Usual Suspects” who’s worked with Cruise on nearly a half-dozen projects, are on the same page – it shows in almost every scene. McQuarrie, an obvious cinephile, layers in a slew of subtle, tongue-in-cheek film references for the enlightened, be it a nod to Rhames’ gimp scene in “Pulp Fiction” or Hunt spouting Cruise’s “crystal” line from “A Few Good Men.” And boy, can he run – and drive, fly and fall. Instead of “Fallout,” the tag for the film should have been “See Tom Run.”

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The Hateful Eight

24 Dec

Tarantino Is True To Form In ‘The Hateful Eight,’ Even If It’s A Lesser Cut

Samuel L. Jackson in "The Hateful Eight." (Courtesy Andrew Cooper/The Weinstein Company)

Samuel L. Jackson in “The Hateful Eight.” (Courtesy Andrew Cooper/The Weinstein Company)

 “The Hateful Eight” was shelved once because Quentin Tarantino was furious that an early version of the script had been leaked. Given that the film holds the kinds of reveals and unexpected twists of an Agatha Christie Whodunnit, the much ado about plot exposure holds water. But having sat through the 168 minute amble (complete with an overture and an intermission) which pretty much unfolds in a single cramped setting, one can only wonder if that earlier pass might not have been more lean and to the point.

What’s ultimately served up is Tarantino channeling Tarantino with men of swagger caught in a mean situation waxing about righteousness and the universe in pulpy poetic verse as tensions rise. It’s what you’d expect and hope for in a Tarantino film, but by the edgy auteur’s barometer (he’s helmed eight movies to date), it’s a lesser cut.

What holds “Eight” in check mostly is its overindulgence, lack of nuance and the fact Q.T. has been to every corner of this room before — and I don’t mean “Four Rooms.” From “Kill Bill, Volume I” onward, Tarantino’s been busy reshaping the revenge flick while paying homage the quirky genres of the ‘70s, namely the cheesy b-roll (“Kill Bill” and “Grindhouse”), the Spaghetti Western (“Django Unchained”) and the chopsocky silliness of kung fu flicks re-cut with lethal seriousness for the “Kill Bill” series.  Continue reading →

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