Bad Times at the El Royale

    Bad Times at the El Royale
    2018

    Synopsis

    Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.

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    Cast

    • Jeff BridgesFather Daniel Flynn / Dock O'Kelly
    • Cynthia ErivoDarlene Sweet
    • Lewis PullmanMiles Miller
    • Dakota JohnsonEmily Summerspring
    • Cailee SpaenyRose Summerspring
    • Jon HammLaramie Seymour Sullivan / Dwight Broadbeck
    • Chris HemsworthBilly Lee
    • Nick OffermanFelix O'Kelly
    • Xavier DolanBuddy Sunday
    • Shea WhighamDr. Woodbury Laurence

    Recommendations

    • 83

      IndieWire

      The more that Goddard upends our assumptions about who’s good, who’s bad, and who’s going to live through the night, the more we realize that we’re rooting for all of these fucked-up people to get right with the world. It’s massively didactic, but in a way that encourages us to dwell on how we feel about these characters, and how malleable those feelings are.
    • 83

      IGN

      Bad Times at the El Royale may overstay its welcome a bit, and it never realizes the potential of its villain, but it’s still an engrossing, well-made crime flick bolstered by several fine performances from its ensemble cast.
    • 83

      Consequence

      Though not as unpredictable as the preceding two hours (and nowhere close to the dizzying final act of Cabin In the Woods), the resolution is still a lot of fun, straight out of a thrilling dime-store novel you’d keep by your bedside table.
    • 83

      The Playlist

      With Bad Times at the El Royale Goddard’s comparatively leisurely pace may disappoint the more impatient, splatter-hungry genre-hounds in his fanbase, but for the rest of us, he has made impressive, enjoyable and gorgeous-to-look-at work of his “difficult second album” by defying expectations in a different way: broadening his scope, deepening his craft and letting the Bad Times roll.
    • 81

      TheWrap

      Bad Times at the El Royale is vibrant motion picture, in a way few films are nowadays. One might even call it indulgent, although “decadent” is probably more accurate.
    • 80

      Total Film

      If the film isn’t quite as inventive as the game-changing horror that was Cabin in the Woods (which boasted Joss Whedon as co-scripter), it’s infused with affection and craft.
    • 75

      The A.V. Club

      Unlike the director’s debut feature The Cabin In The Woods, Bad Times At The El Royale isn’t a deconstruction of the neo-noir genre so much as a structurally ambitious example of same.
    • 70

      Screen Daily

      There’s ample amusement in the twists, betrayals and revelations that unspool. But Bad Times never really transcends the inherent limitations of its setup; it’s fun, but fleeting.

    Seen by

    • ghostradio