The Million Dollar Hotel
This is one, terminally bizarre movie. For director Wim Wenders, it’s a quirky, albeit very far, cry from his 1987 masterpiece, “Wings of Desire.” For Bono, the U2 frontman who conceived of the story with Nicholas Klein, it’s an artistic disaster as storytelling, although the soundtrack is one of U2’s finest hours. For Mel Gibson, who produced the film through his Icon Productions, and also co-stars as an FBI agent investigating the death of a billionaire’s son in a rundown L.A. hotel, this is one of his lowest points as a filmmaker and actor; sure, he got a lot of flack for saying to a reporter that the film was, “as boring as a dog’s ass,” but when you actually watch the film, it’s hard to argue with his assessment.
Before delving into the film, I’d like to give some praise to the soundtrack, which I purchased a full year-plus before I saw the movie, which had a very limited, and ridiculously bad, run in theatres. The music is a combination of underscore by Bono, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Jon Hassell and songs by U2. The underscore is moody and evocative, fitting for the movie’s unorthodox, noir style, but the songs are what really stand out. In particular, the main song, “The Ground Beneath Her Feet,” by U2 and author Salman Rushdie, gets at the tragic heart of what the film tries to do narratively.
And what is “The Million Dollar Hotel” trying to accomplish narratively? Watching it for the first time in over a decade, it was easier to look past the tics and oddball behavior of just about every main character in the film, and see the film as an indictment of society, and how it casts away people who are deemed “unnecessary.” You see, the Hotel is populated by people who are troubled, scarred, and emotionally unstable. How could a billionaire’s son (played by Tim Roth) end up here? That’s the mystery Gibson’s FBI special agent Skinner is trying to solve. Of course, with Gibson in a neck brace, and engaging in equally offbeat behavior, is this a case of the inmates investigating the asylum? It certainly appears that way.
The main character of the film is Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies), whom we first see jumping from the top of the hotel. It’s his voice we hear narrating the film, although as we see him following Skinner around, and observing the goings on at the hotel, we feel a dissonance between his behavior (which is just as unnerving as those of his fellow residents) and his actual abilities– his voiceover makes us wonder if he’s really as damaged as the rest of the Hotel’s occupants. Tom Tom is in love with Eloise (Milla Jovovich), who is living with her grandmother (Gloria Stuart). Eloise has a habit of sleeping around, but as the story progresses, the two form a deeper connection.
Admittedly, it sounds as though I’m softening my opinion of this film, and indeed, a more objective eye has help see things more clearly. However, the movie is still a creative disaster when taken as a whole. The tone Wenders, Bono, and Klein are trying for is quirky, romantic, and soulful, but more often than not, it comes off as exploitative, uneasy, and forced. The performances are less about character depth and more about tics and mannerisms; it feels like the filmmakers were going for a modern-day “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but the movie is simply cuckoo. When not even the collective talents of Wenders, U2, and Gibson (along with the other talented actors in the cast) can stave off disaster, you can’t help but think a movie was doomed from the start.
