REVIEW: Bad Times at the El Royale here for a long time, not a good time

BAD Times at the El Royale takes a long, slow scenic route in a mystery awash with money, murder and mayhem at a hotel in the middle of nowhere.

Jon Hamm and Jeff Bridges in Bad Times At the El Royale. Picture: Twentieth Century Fox

HERE is the clear-cut takeaway from the alternately intriguing and infuriating Bad Times at the El Royale: it is not here for a good time, it is here for a long time.

Doesn’t really matter much that misery reigns supreme in what is essentially a hard-boiled mystery-noir affair.

However, it does matter that it takes a big, fat two-hours-twenty to flatten all possible wrinkles from an already thin and papery premise.

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The year is 1969 at an out-of-the-way hotel sitting smack-bang on the Nevada-California border. So smack-bang, in fact, that a painted line delineating the separation of the states runs right through the establishment’s foyer.

Chris Hemsworth as Billy Lee in Bad Times at the El Royale. Picture: Twentieth Century Fox

As the action slowly picks up, a handful of freaky guests are checking in for the night at the El Royale.

As we have already gleaned from a compelling prologue featuring Nick Offerman as a past guest of the hotel not long for this world, one of the new arrivals will be unwittingly staying in a room where a huge whack of stolen cash is stashed under the floorboards.

Meanwhile, another of their number will be watching the guest ledger with intense interest, awaiting the right chance to access the suite and get their paws on that sweet moolah.

To further up the ante when it comes to working out who knows what about the money — and who has no clue whatsoever — there is a hidden series of corridors and one-way mirrors behind the walls of every El Royale room.

It takes a while to come together, but it gradually becomes clear that the evening will be a high-stakes lottery with an instant death sentence possibly awaiting those who don’t win.

Among the contestants assembled are suave travelling salesman Laramie Sullivan (Jon Hamm), doddering priest Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges), itinerant soul singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) and tough-talking femme fatale Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson).

They’ll later be joined by a Charles Manson-ish cult leader named Billy Lee (a scene-stealing Chris Hemsworth), whose jolting injection into proceedings is all about forcing a clear result in the cash-grab stakes and completing a final body count.

If you can be very patient with Bad Times at the El Royale, its flamboyantly strange closing act might still pay its way.

Otherwise, think long and hard before signing in.

BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE (MA15+)

Rating: Two and a half stars (2.5 out of 5)

Director: Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods)

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Lewis Pullman.

A night that goes on forever and a stay

Originally published as REVIEW: Bad Times at the El Royale here for a long time, not a good time