CHAOS WALKING : Tuesday 9th March 2021.

I saw 'CHAOS WALKING' at my local multiplex this week. This M Rated American Sci-Fi action adventure film is Directed by Doug Liman whose prior film making credits take in the likes of 'Swingers' in 1996, 'The Bourne Identity' in 2002, 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' in 2005, 'Fair Game' in 2010, 'Edge of Tomorrow' in 2014, and 'The Wall' and 'American Made' both in 2017. This film is based on the Sci-Fi trilogy 'Chaos Walking', adapting its first book, 2008's 'The Knife of Never Letting Go' by Patrick Ness. First announced in 2011, the film had undergone several rewrites with Liman later announced as the Director in 2016, with principal photography fully started and finished around 2017. Originally set for release on 1st March 2019, it was removed from schedule to accommodate the films' reshoots in April 2019 following poor audience test screenings. It saw its World Premiere in South Korea on 24th February this year and was released in the US and Australia last week. Costing US$100M to produce, the film has so far grossed US$7M and has garnered mixed or average Reviews. 

Our film opens up on a distant habitable world (not unlike planet Earth), known as New World in the year 2257 AD. We are first introduced to Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) walking through the woods with his trusted dog in tow. On the path into Prentisstown, where he lives he comes across Aaron (David Oyelowo) a radical preacher riding his horse. Aaron gets down off his horse and thumps Todd squarely in the face sending him reeling backwards. This is because of 'The Noise' - a force that puts everyone's thoughts on display and for everyone to see and hear. Clearly Aaron was none too pleased at the noise emanating from Todds head. Aaron mounts his horse and heads onward, leaving Todd to collect his thoughts and continue into Prentisstown. Once there Davy Prentiss Jnr. (Nick Jonas) siddles up on horseback and chastises Todd who retaliates with the thought of huge snake rising up against him which causes Davy's horse to buck throwing him off. Appearing shortly afterwards is David Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen) the Mayor of Prentisstown, who tells the two young lads to stop playing, and commends Todd for his clever snake thought.  

Returning to his farm that night and over dinner with Ben Moore (Demian Bechir) and Cillian Boyd (Kurt Sutter) his adoptive fathers, Ben tells Todd that he is needed to work the farm the next day. The next morning while Todd goes to the barn in search for some tools, he spies a mystery figure dressed in orange jump out of a barn window and leg it into the woods. Todd gives chase and comes across the scene of a recently downed spacecraft whose wreckage is strewn over a large area. His thoughts are to immediately advise David Prentiss of his findings, who rapidly organises a search party for the mystery man. 

Returning to the crash site David Prentiss, Todd and a bunch of other men scour the scene salvaging what serviceable technology they can, whilst searching for a girl, Prentiss has quickly determined. Gingerly seeking out the mysterious figure Todd comes across a girl (Daisy Ridley), and is taken aback because he has never seen a girl before. It turns out that the alien species who inhabited New World, known as the Spackle, released a germ that killed all the women and unleashed 'The Noise' on the remaining men. Todd's own mother was killed by the Spackle shortly after he was born. The girl does not speak, but chooses to run in a bid to escape. 

It's not long before David Prentiss and his men catch up with the girl, and take her back to Prentisstown. There she is questioned and we learn that her spacecraft burned up on entry into New World's atmosphere and the rest of her crew all perished. David has ulterior motives for his line of questions - in particular his interest in the mother ship which carries four thousand people and its means to get them off New World. Following an incident in which the girl is left alone with Davy Jnr., the girl again escapes and from under the building where she is hiding she can easily overhear a conversation David is having with some others saying that it is in everyone's interests to capture the girl, to do it quickly before she is able to contact the mother ship, and that she poses a threat to them all. 

While David is off organising a search party, the girl lays low in the barn of Todd's farm, unbeknownst to him. He goes inside and discovers her, and tells her that he doesn't want to harm her, is there to help her and to remain out of sight. He then tells his fathers Ben and Cillian, who reluctantly agree to harbour the girl, but tell Todd that he needs to get far away from Prentisstown and to go to Farbranch another community some distance away. Ben shows him a map which Todd commits to memory, and is told not to tell anyone at Farbranch that they are from Prentisstown. It's not long however, before David arrives at the farm demanding to know the whereabouts the girl. Todd gives away the girls location in the barn through his noise. Inside the barn the girl has hot-wired a motorbike and makes her escape on it. Todd jumps on a horse and follows in hot pursuit, duly followed by a posse of David's men. David meanwhile shoots Cillian in the stomach and he lies there dying in Bens arms.

After falling down a steep gully in the woods, the motorbike is trashed and the horse suffers a broken leg which sees Todd put his trusted steed out of its misery. They continue on foot, and camp out in the rain overnight. The girl introduces herself to Todd as Viola Eade and says she has never seen or felt rain before. It took her mother ship sixty-four years to travel from Earth to New World. She was born on it, as were her parents who have subsequently died, and it was her grandparents who set forth from Earth all those years ago in search of new worlds to colonise. 

They venture deeper into the forest trying to find the path to Farbranch. They come across a clearing and a Spackle alien. Todd and the Spackle fight with Todd gaining the upper hand and holding the Spackle's head under the water of a nearby stream and stabbing away furiously at the alien. Viola urges Todd to stop. He does so reluctantly, as the Spackle gets up, recovers himself and walks away nonchalantly glancing back over its shoulder as it does so. 

Eventually they come to Farbranch and they are surprised to find a community that has sheep in a paddock, grapes growing on trellised vines, and a big contingent of women and girls. The mayor of the town is female too - Hildy Black (Cynthia Erivo) who takes in the pair and provides them with safe harbour, despite the ruling that any man from Prentisstown entering Farbranch will be given the rope (ie. hanged). When Todd lets slip through his noise that he is in fact from Prentisstown, the menfolk want to string him up immediately, but Hildy says that he's just a boy and therefore the rule doesn't apply. It's here we learn one evening that Ben slipped Todd's mothers journal into his pack before he set off. He confesses to Viola that he cannot read and was never taught, in the belief that hearing others mens thoughts was all the education he would ever need. So Viola reads the journal and it is revealed that David Prentiss engineered the execution of all the woman, because the menfolk couldn't bear the women knowing their every thought, while the men couldn't bear not knowing what their women were thinking. The next day David rocks up to Farbranch with his posse and a stand-off ensues with Hildy and her community. 

David demands to know the location of the girl, and sends Ben in to retrieve her from a storage facility. Ben uses his noise to project an image of Viola to appease David momentarily so giving her and Todd the opportunity to escape. Hildy had previously told Todd that the next community, Haven, contains a means of communicating with the mother ship, so they venture forth. In the meantime, Todd and Ben argue saying that he now knows the truth behind the slaying of all the women and why did Ben lie to him all these past years. Ben is distraught, and offers to make amends to allow their escape, even if it means sacrificing himself. They come to a river bank upon which is tied a two man barge. They see this as a means of evade their pursuers but Aaron catches up with them on horseback and follows them into the river. Viola can't swim, and approaching a set of rapids Aaron latches onto Viola and drags her off the barge with Todd attempting to beat off the preacher. In the white water Viola is dragged under the upturned barge and she is separated from Todd and Aaron. Todd resurfaces and rescues Viola while Aaron emerges on the other side of the embankment and holds Todd's dog under the water drowning it. 

Collecting themselves and gathering their thoughts, they continue onwards coming to the remains of a downed mother ship that was the first in the fleet that landed initially on New World years ago. It is half buried and completely wrecked, but Viola says that there is a means of communicating two levels down that will still be active. They both climb down into the bowels of the former ship and locate the communication device, but there is no signal as the antennae is down. Todd offers to climb up several levels to reconnect the antennae, which he does successfully, but from on high notices David's posse approaching. In the meantime Aaron has re-emerged and gets into a fight with Viola as she is attempting to reconnect. Needless to say its doesn't end well for Aaron who is last seen screaming that he has been baptised by fire - literally! Viola connects with her mothership once the antennae is restored. Todd has clambered down and is confronted by David. Todd attacks David with a knife, David shoots Todd in the shoulder as he is running for cover, and Viola appears and pushes David over the edge of a badly damaged wing sending him falling several storeys below into the guts of the spaceship - presumably to his certain death. 

Viola's mothership then appears in the sky above them. Todd comes round on the mothership having been out of it for several days, his shoulder wound having been treated and almost healed with Viola looking on. They both look down on New World and see a new community in the throes of construction. 

'Chaos Walking' isn't a bad film, but it's also not that great. For a start there is very little by way of world building here given that this film is set 230+ years into the future and New World has the look and feel of our very own planet Earth, even though it is supposedly sixty-four years away. And this Sci-Fi, dystopian action drama part Western is a muddled concoction of teenage angst, wannabe romance and a wilderness survival movie that is aided along by the pairing of two young talented screen actors in Holland and Ridley intent on going their own way following their big budget franchise outings of recent years. And Mads Mikkelsen who is always watchable despite his character being undercooked does manage to be the glue that binds the film together, with mostly surplus to requirement performances from Oyelowo and Erivo regrettably. As for the Spackle who supposedly inflicted the Noise on the male population, well they barely get a look in save for one sequence when a fist fight breaks out between Todd and an one armed indigenous alien that ends as quickly as it started - enough said (and seen) it seems! Doug Liman who has enjoyed many successes throughout his career here offers up an interesting premise, with well enough realised set pieces but it lacks energy, urgency and emotion and ends up being conventional, predictable and lacking in substance, clearly not helped by its troubled shoot and protracted delays. 

'Chaos Walking' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

WIDOWS : Wednesday 28th November 2018.

'WIDOWS' which I saw earlier in the week at my local multiplex, is an American heist drama film based on the 1983 and 1985 British television series of the same name that was written by Lynda La Plante, and which ran for two series each of six episodes. Now in 2018 that earlier inspiration has been given a makeover some thirty years later and this time is written for the screen by Gillian Flynn, the author of the acclaimed novel and later film 'Gone Girl'. Directed by Steve McQueen whose previous Directorial credits include 'Hunger', 'Shame' and '12 Years a Slave', here he has amassed an ensemble cast for a Production Budget of US$42M and what has so far received widespread Critical praise. The film saw its Premier screening at TIFF back in September, was released in the UK early in November, the US and Australia mid-November, has so far grossed US$42M and has been Critically praised.

The story here surrounds a Police shootout that leaves four career thieves and partners in crime dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago that goes horribly wrong for the gang of four. Those men were Harry Rawlins (Liam Neeson), Carlos Perelli (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Florek Gunner (Jon Bernthal) and Jimmy Nunn (Coburn Goss). We see the four men in the lead up to their fateful robbery living the domestic life with their wives, children, pets, jobs and each man leaving their domestic situation on the morning of the daring heist . . .  never to return. We then cut to the funerals of each one in turn - mostly small & private, expect for Harry's which was a much grander affair attended by many guests and a few dignitaries. The widows left behind are Veronica Rawlins (Viola Davis), Linda Perelli (Michelle Rodriguez), Alice Gunner (Elizabeth Debicki) and Amanda Nunn (Carrie Coon). At Harry's funeral, after his body is lowered into the ground, Veronica is approached by Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell) who is running for election for the position of Alderman in the South Side Ward of Chicago, offering his deepest sympathies and his support, if ever she needs anything.

Meanwhile Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) is also running for election as Alderman of the South Side Ward against Mulligan, and there is a fierce rivalry between the two. Mulligan believing that as his father and grandfather before him occupied that seat, that he has a divine right to it having been born into the role, and Manning believes that he is a man of the people and is their voice at a grassroots level. However, Manning is also a crime boss, and has his younger brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya) to do his dirty work for him, including dispensing with ruthless efficiency with those that would cross the pair or stand in the way of them getting what they want. We quickly learn that Harry and his gang robbed Jamal of US$2M which went up in smoke, and now the Manning's are wanting their money back, as this money was to fund Manning's electoral campaign against Mulligan. The pair look on menacingly from a distance at Harry's funeral.

Harry's trusted long time driver Bash (Garret Dillahunt) while driving Veronica around, hands her a small package containing a key and a handwritten note with the location of a safety deposit box. Recovering the box she opens it up to reveal a note book, in which are contained copious detailed notes of Harry's former robberies, and those planned. In it are contained notes of a future robbery worth US$5M in cash. Meanwhile, Jamal has visited Veronica in her home, demanding repayment of the US$2M that her husband stole from him, and gives her one month to pay up in full or suffer the consequences. Veronica claims to have known nothing about her husbands criminal activities and doesn't have that sort of money, despite the facade of living in a plush apartment with all the trappings of success. Despite what she may or may not claim to know about her husbands 'business', she has one month.

Veronica, realising the seriousness with which Jamal speaks and the threats made against her, decides to carry out the plan as laid out in Harry's note book in order to repay her debt to Jamal. She sets up a secret meeting with the three other widows whom she has never met before, and whose details she coerced out of Bash. Veronica is successful in recruiting both Alice and Linda to assist execute her plan, but this is completely new territory to the widows and they are each pretty clueless about what's involved - they just know they've gotta complete the task now in hand, and live with the consequences whatever they might be. The fourth widow however, Amanda, does not show to their initial meeting. Veronica outlines the plan in brief and says that if the girls are 'in' to meet tomorrow night at 11:30pm at a secret location which turns out to be Harry's former warehouse and and centre of operations, which remains just as the gang left it before their last job.

At that meeting, after some soul searching and weighing up their options, Alice and Linda are both in. Veronica charges Alice to buy the getaway van and three Glock pistols, while Linda is tasked with deciphering a blueprint in Harry's plan that is the location of the planned heist. Alice purchases a van from a used vehicle auction house, and the three pistols from a gun fair. Linda however, struggles to locate the whereabouts of the building depicted on the photocopied blueprint. Meanwhile, Alice has become an 'escort' at her mother Agnieska (Jacki Weaver) suggestion, to raise some much needed cash and all the trappings that go with it. On her first 'date' she falls into a transactional relationship with David (Lukas Haas) a real estate developer. She uses David's knowledge to trace the origin of the blueprint and the location of the building depicted thereon. He comes back some days later stating that it is a safe room within Jack Mulligan's home. As for Amanda, Veronica visits her and learns that she has a four month old newborn baby, and so decides not to mention their upcoming heist or to seek her involvement. 

Bash is visited unannounced in his home by Jatemme and his henchmen seeking the whereabouts of the notebook, realising the value contained in its detailed handwritten pages. When Bash claims no knowledge of its whereabouts he is promptly beaten to a pulp and murdered while Jatemme looks on. Still with no driver to provide their getaway, Linda recruits Belle (Cynthia Erivo), her children’s babysitter, and a hairdresser in a Salon underpinned by funding from Mulligan. Veronica is reluctant, but with six days only remaining on the month long deadline to pay up, she agrees to take Belle on, and it seems like she is made of sterner stuff, and can drive. Veronica visits the Mulligan home to ask Jack for protection from Manning, to which he politely declines, and to scout out the building in advance of the heist, while Belle scans the external security systems. Veronica also successfully acquires the code to the Mulligan safe by blackmailing the CEO of the Mulligans' security company, Ken (Matt Walsh) using explicit photographs of him of a sexual nature left in Harry's notebook.

The group commences the heist at night by creating a distraction down the street to divert police attention. The house is believed to be empty save for a lone Security Guard whom they taser and incapacitate. Jack Mulligan is away at an election debate between him and Jamal Manning. Having gained access to the safe and loaded up with US$5M in cash, in making their exit they are interrupted by Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall), father of Jack and the current sitting Alderman, who shoots and wounds Alice. Linda returns fire and kills him. They escape with the money, but are caught by Jamal's brother Jatemme who is holding Belle at gunpoint and who in turn steals it from them, leaving the four girls standing on the side of the road penniless. 

Thinking he is clear Jatemme relaxes with a big smile on his dial behind the wheel of the girls getaway van, only to be heavily shunted from behind by a station wagon with the four widows giving chase and Belle at the wheel. Jatemme looses control of the vehicle and smashes into a crash barrier head-on killing him instantly. The girls retrieve the money and make their getaway. Linda takes Alice to the nearest hospital for medical attention to her gun shot wound and remains with her. Veronica drops Belle off at home before returning to the hideout with the stash of cash. Upon leaving the hideout having taken care of some final business, Veronica torches their getaway car, before loading up the final bag of swag into her own car. 

A few days later it is announced on the radio that Jack Mulligan won the election on a wave of public sympathy following his father's murder. Linda reacquires the store she lost upon her husband's death due to his gambling debts, Alice sets up her own business, and Belle moves out of town with her own children. Out of danger of Manning, Veronica donates much of her share to endow a library building in her and Harry's deceased son's memory and name at the school he attended.

I enjoyed 'Widows' but not as much as I thought I would, and I felt let down by the glowing Critical acclaim that seemingly has been bestowed upon McQueen's heist actioner. The performances are top rate - especially Viola Davis and Elizabeth Debicki, the film looks good enough, but for a heist movie set in Chicago of all places, the actual and only heist takes place in the final ten minutes of a two hour+ long movie, and there are plot holes aplenty too. Four dead career criminal husbands, four grieving and at a complete loss desperate wives, political power play, father and son machinations, gangsters making demands, violence, death and emotional turmoil are all at play here, together with a seemingly completely incompetent Chicago PD. The film moves along at a goodly pace, but some of the scenes felt rushed, especially towards the end leaving questions unanswered and plot holes uncovered, and some of the characters were left hanging without any real sense of closure. Critics seems to be raving about 'Widows' but audiences less so, and I'm in the camp with the audience I must say. Despite this the film has plenty of redeeming features too and is worth a look - it's good, but it's not great!

'Widows' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE : Tuesday 23rd October 2018.

'BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE' which I saw on Tuesday evening this week is a late 1960's neo-noir set American thriller that is Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Drew Goddard. He also wrote multiple episodes of popular television series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', 'Angel', 'Alias', 'Lost', created and wrote two episodes of 'Daredevil' and wrote for the big screen too including 'Cloverfield', 'World War Z', 'The Martian', and 'Cabin in the Woods' which was also his Directing debut. After this outing Goddard is Writing and Directing Marvel's 'X-Force'. Costing US$32M to make, the film has so far grossed US$22M since its release in the US and Australia two weeks ago and has received generally positive press, although some are stating that the two hours twenty minutes running time is a little overcooked.

And so the storyline here follows seven strangers who find themselves at the El Royale, a novelty hotel traversing the border of California and Nevada close to Lake Tahoe. As the film opens we are introduced to a man who enters a hotel room at the El Royale in 1960, rather nervously, pulling out a hand gun, peering out of the window before pulling the curtains closed. He then proceeds to move all the furniture, pull up the carpet, pull up the floorboards and deposits a hold-all bag under the floor before replacing the floorboards, replacing the carpet and replacing all the furniture to its original position. He then hears a knock at the door, opens it and is blasted dead with a shotgun. We then fast forward ten years later to 1970, and at the same El Royale Hotel checking in are Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges), singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) and travelling vacuum cleaner salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm). Sometime shortly after, Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson) drives erratically up to the front entrance and brings her sports coupe to a grinding halt on the driveway. She saunters out, and also demands a room.

They wait patiently at the Reception ringing the bell awaiting for someone to appear but for ten minutes nobody does. The four exchange social niceties to pass the time of day with Sullivan announcing that the former Rat Pack destinational hotel is now a shadow of its former self as it had lost its gaming licence some years ago, since which time trade has gone rapidly downhill. The hotel's only employee Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman) appears and books them into the rooms, giving them the choice to stay in Nevada or California and officially welcomes them to the El Royale giving them the rules of the house . . . . a routine he would have repeated countless times over the years.

Upon checking into the honeymoon suite, at his very specific request, Sullivan (real name Dwight Broadbeck and in reality an FBI Agent masquerading as a travelling salesman) scans the room for bugs. Upon closer examination of the room he retrieves twenty or so hidden microphones of two different designs hidden in every nook and cranny - in light fittings, power sockets, in the phone, the TV set, the curtain rail and behind picture frames. Having turned the room upside down and exhausted his search he puts a call through to none other than J. Edgar Hoover who tells Broadbeck to remove all evidence of the FBI's operations, for reasons that are unclear.

He goes to the Reception to find it, surprise surprise, unattended. He rings the bell but that goes unanswered. He retrieves the master key to gain access to a locked door in his room, and ventures back of house in search of Miller, whom he finds passed out on bed with a needle hanging from his arm. Broadbeck then decides to investigate back of house and sees a passageway leading down a corridor with one-way mirrors looking into each guest room, and with a film camera set up for the far room at the end of the darkened corridor. Broadbeck spies Father Flynn ripping up the floorboards in his room, Darlene practising her singing into the mirror, and witnesses an apparent kidnapping in Summerspring's room.

Broadbeck puts a call into his office again to be instructed to disregard the alleged kidnapping and to sabotage all the vehicles to prevent the other guests from leaving. In the meantime, Flynn had overheard Darlene's singing from the next room and asks her to join him for dinner. She reluctantly agrees and the pair go to the lounge to retrieve some pie from a vending machine. Listening to music from the juke box, Flynn pours himself a stiff drink and request that Darlene join him for one. She observes Flynn spiking her drink and belts him over the head with a bottle sending him reeling unconscious to the floor. She makes a quick exit out of the hotel into the pouring rain. Miles discovers Flynn on the floor in the bar surrounded by broken glass and a big gash to his forehead. Seeking forgiveness for his sins from the Priest, he leads Father Flynn to the back of house corridor stating that the owners of the hotel who live interstate instruct Miles to film certain guests and send them the footage once every month. Miles has however, chosen to withhold one especially damning film reel of a recently deceased public figure, because the subject person in question was kind to him and if it was to go public would cause a huge scandal.

Acting directly against the orders of his superiors, Broadbeck takes the law into his own hands and after sabotaging the vehicles, bursts in on Emily's room where the alleged kidnapping is unfolding. It is revealed that Emily is in fact holding hostage her own sister Rose (Cailee Spaeny) to protect her from running back to cult leader Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth). Emily opens fire on Broadbeck who is standing directly in front of the rooms mirror, and with a shotgun kills him instantly. Miles who was stood behind that same mirror in the corridor looking in, accidentally gets a face full of buckshot from the same cartridge that killed Broadbeck.

Darlene has meanwhile tried to escape, having witnessed Emily's gunning down of Broadbeck through the opened door, and attempts to start her car but to no avail. Flynn catches up with her and asks to talk. They do so, with Darlene pointing a loaded pistol at Flynn. He comes clean that he is really a criminal named Donald 'Doc' O'Kelly, who was sentenced to ten years jail time after a robbery gone wrong.

Released only days ago on parole, O'Kelly has returned to the El Royale dressed as a Priest to retrieve the bag of swag that his brother Felix had stashed there before being gunned down in a double cross. However, owing to the onset of Alzheimer's, Flynn can't recall which room it was in. The reason he had attempted to drug Darlene was to gain access to her room, deducing that the cash had to be stashed there after he couldn't find it in his own room. Darlene agrees to allow him to search her room in exchange for half the cash.

Having discovered the secret corridor behind the shattered mirror in their room, Emily and Rose interrogate a bloodied Miles with half his face covered in buckshot wounds, about the clandestine surveillance operation. It transpires that Emily had forcibly removed her sister from the clutches of Billy Lee's cult, who by the way whilst being very smooth talking and charismatic was also a sadistic murderer wanted down Florida way for several killings. Rose though loves Billy Lee and has already alerted him to their whereabouts and he is en route. Just as Flynn and Darlene are about to leave with their haul of retrieved cash, Billy Lee arrives with his cultist henchmen and hold them both hostage together now with Emily and Miles too.

While terrorising and interrogating his four captives, Lee discovers the money and the film which he realises pretty quickly is much more valuable than the cash stash. In a sadistic game of roulette, Lee shoots and kills Emily, and threatens to kill Miles, Flynn and Darlene if they do not divulge from whence the money came and Flynn's real identity, sensing that he is not really a Priest. When an overhead lightning strike temporarily cuts the power, Flynn attacks Lee and the hotel lounge catches fire. During the ensuing chaos, Miles reveals that he served as an expert sniper in Vietnam with 123 confirmed skills to his name, but that he can kill no more, being racked with guilt over his killings. At Darlene insistence, given the dire circumstances they find themselves in, he picks up a gun and kills Lee and the other cultists. A distraught Rose stabs Miles in the stomach with a hunting life retrieved from Lee's lifeless body, but is then shot dead by O'Kelly. As Miles lays dying, Darlene urges O'Kelly (returning to Father Flynn mode) to forgive him of his guilt over his actions in Vietnam and at the El Royale over the years, so that he can enter the Kingdom of Heaven at peace at last. O'Kelly and Darlene retrieve the money and throw the canister of film and the hotel register with their names on it into the fire now quickly taking hold in the hotel lobby, before the pair flee, leaving in their wake a trail of death and destruction.

I enjoyed 'Bad Times at the El Royale' despite its elongated running time. Some scenes did labour the point just a little too much, and could easily have been trimmed back by ten or fifteen minutes or so, but that said the film moves along at a good pace, and there is plenty of action and unfolding events to maintain the interest. This film is a solid mash-up of Tarantino and Agatha Christie as it weaves back and forth in time over the course of that one fateful evening and tells the story from each players own point of view to build up the entire picture by the time the credits roll. Stylishly filmed with a faithful recreation of the era and sharp dialogue delivered by a strong ensemble cast who individually all deliver violent outbursts and nail their persona's. Especially noteworthy is Cynthia Erivo in her big screen debut as the soulful singer determined to make it on her own terms in very much a mans world, and Jeff Bridges playing an all too familiar if comfortable role as the weary and gruff ageing linchpin to the night unfolding the way it does. Chris Hemsworth's chiseled physique is also on show for all the world to see, and here he plays largely against type and clearly relishing in it. Certainly worth a look and the price of entry, albeit just a tad overcooked.

'Bad Times at the El Royale' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, out of a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-