Wim Wenders is one of the most celebrated German film makers of the last decades of 20th Century. Much of his reputation was built on the shoulders of arthouse cinema aficionados and critics that tend to favour such films. By the end of the century Wenders began to lose critics’ favour and that process was accelerated by the failure of his 2000 crime drama Million Dollar Hotel.
The plot is set in Rosslyn Hotel in Los Angeles, establishment that used to be one of top places to be in 1920s. In present day, however, it turned into dilapidated structure that caters to alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, mentally ill and other people from the margins of society. One of its guests used to be Izzy Goldkiss (played by Tim Roth), aspiring quasi-artist whose suicide wouldn’t take much notice if not for his father being powerful tycoon Stanley Goldkiss (played by Harris Yulin). Through his political connection he arranges for FBI to investigate the case and Special Agent Skinner (played by Mel Gibson) is sent there. He quickly becomes convinced that Izzy was actually murdered and begins to pursue various leads, undeterred by other guests sabotaging his investigation. He starts to manipulate Tom Tom (played by Jeremy Davies), kind-hearted but mentally retarded young man, as well as the feeling the youth has towards young woman named Eloise (played by Milla Jovovich).
Million Dollar Hotel is one of those films that looked promising on paper and had many ingredients for success – “cool” and memorable title, cast that involves both mainstream stars like Gibson (who also produced the film) and low budget independent cinema icons like Tim Roth and, finally, soundtrack by U2. The latter isn’t surprising because the idea from film came from Wenders’ good friend Bono Vox, who had talked German film maker into making a film set in “magical and wonderful place” he had seen during production of Phil Joanu’s 1988 documentary Rattle and Hum. Wenders has decided to use Rosslyn Hotel for rather weak mystery plot and it served mostly as an excuse to portray various flamboyant characters. Most of them were written very badly and the actors playing them took that as an opportunity for Oscar-baiting overacting. As a result, most of the audience would find those characters irritating, especially in the case of Tom Tom, being played by Jeremy Davies. The increasingly unpleasant experience isn’t helped even by Mel Gibson who tries his best to make his slightly eccentric character relatable to the audience. Million Dollar Hotel was greeted poorly by critics during its premiere at Berlin Film Festival and its commercial results were predictably abysmal. Mel Gibson later even tried to distance himself from the production and anyone unfortunate to sit through two hours of this film might find such efforts quite understandable.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417 Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
