Gasp! What an insane idea! Thanks to cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, composer Michael Giacchino and the other talent behind the camera, as well as a solid cast led by Jeff Bridges, it works very well. Where he has bettered Tarrantino - with whom I have reached my limit - is that it's not necessary to go all potty-mouth all the time, and if you can't remember a great shot to steal, why, you can write your own. A great music track is necessary - 1960s girl-band hits. Add in some shock value and a great setting - the Arte Moderne El Royale is clearly modeled on the Cal-Neva Lodge, the glitzy hotel half in California and half in Nevada, that was bought by Sinatra and Dean Martin fronting for the Mafia. Clearly writer-director Drew Goddard has seen Quentin Tarrantino's pictures and has learned his stye of writing a movie: take a bunch of great shots, and write a script that gets from one to the next. It's an elaborately, almost flamboyantly written neo-noir. Only one of them is what he or she claims to be.
Ten years later, a priest, a traveling salesman, a girl singer and an angry hippie chick are checked into the El Royale motel by a deaf hotel clerk. A man enters a motel room, moves all the furniture, rolls up the rug, pries open the floor, drops a satchel into the hole, puts everything back in place, hangs around, answers the door and is blown to smithereens.
