Bad Times at the El Royale

Mid-century modern architecture. The Dude aka Jeff Bridges. Retro hippy California captured in amazing production design.Tautly suspenseful. These factors did me in, even before the movie started I was a fan.

This Drew Goddard movie is a loopy mystery built on the much used story device of a bunch strangers coming together in a strange place for a short period of time. But the adherence to the stock formula ends at the beginning once the scene is set.

The characters are unconventional, the twist and turns unpredictable and you can't help but rooting for the Dude even though you are an atheist and he is in the guise of a priest in this movie. The only single bell hop and mostly absent caretaker of the motel, Miles, is played by Lewis Pullman.The rest of the quirky cast is made up of Jon Hamm as the traveling vacuum cleaner salesman and the amazing singing and acting talent of Cynthia Arivo as the single African American woman who is on her way to audition as a backup singer for Supremes in Vegas. Then there is Dakota Fanning as the hippie Emily Summerspring and the charismatic cult leader Billy Lee - played by a mostly shirtless Chris Hemsworth.

To find later (after watching the movie) that the entire El Royale motel was built inside a warehouse in Vancouver with set design, color palette, architecture, and even singular details like bar stools or the distance from the bar to the reception made to match up with exact measurement of the movement of characters and the aesthetics of the movie was mind-blowing. Martin Whist, the production designer deserves a ton of credit for the amazing setting. The El Royale motel is also an important character of the movie and merited all the attention and detail it received, of course it has its hidden dark secret too. The California-Nevada state line running right through the hotel is an interesting element of the story.

Bad Times at El Royale has a captivating story line, engaging actors and an incredible set for film noir fans with a finesse modern technology can afford us now. 1969 looks better than it ever was at this border line between sunshine state and sin city.