Release Date:
02/02/2001
The Million Dollar Hotel owes its genesis to the short but infinitely ambitious U2 frontman Bono, who contacted good buddy Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Buena Vista Social Club) about turning his twisted murder-mystery idea into a movie. The results are about as iffy as U2’s last few albums.
The titular hotel is a seedy, downtown-L.A. flophouse that serves as home to a collection of freaks that make the Mos Eisley cantina scene in Star Wars look like a PBS documentary. When one of them, a millionaire’s son-turned-heroin-addict, does the Nestea plunge off the roof, the FBI is dispatched to find out what happened.
Hotel features well-known actors (Jeremy Davies, Jimmy Smits, Milla Jovovich, Peter Stormare) playing goofy psychotics and mentally challenged weirdos, and the results are often more annoying than effective. The most engaging character by far is FBI agent Skinner, played by Mel Gibson (who, by the way, got himself into a tiff with Bono by being quoted as saying this flick is “boring as a dog’s ass”). Wearing an elaborate neck brace and walking like Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein, his character is a man desperate to prove he’s not as crazy as the freaks he’s investigating.
In the end, however, the movie lacks two major elements that keep it from being a good mystery: a tight plot and a crime worth solving. If you’ve got the time and the inclination, it might be worth a look. For those of us who see far too many of nature’s mistakes on our morning commute, we’d rather not.
The titular hotel is a seedy, downtown-L.A. flophouse that serves as home to a collection of freaks that make the Mos Eisley cantina scene in Star Wars look like a PBS documentary. When one of them, a millionaire’s son-turned-heroin-addict, does the Nestea plunge off the roof, the FBI is dispatched to find out what happened.
Hotel features well-known actors (Jeremy Davies, Jimmy Smits, Milla Jovovich, Peter Stormare) playing goofy psychotics and mentally challenged weirdos, and the results are often more annoying than effective. The most engaging character by far is FBI agent Skinner, played by Mel Gibson (who, by the way, got himself into a tiff with Bono by being quoted as saying this flick is “boring as a dog’s ass”). Wearing an elaborate neck brace and walking like Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein, his character is a man desperate to prove he’s not as crazy as the freaks he’s investigating.
In the end, however, the movie lacks two major elements that keep it from being a good mystery: a tight plot and a crime worth solving. If you’ve got the time and the inclination, it might be worth a look. For those of us who see far too many of nature’s mistakes on our morning commute, we’d rather not.