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Jason Maloney reviews

The Million Dollar Hotel

Distributed by

Warner Bros.

Cert:
Cat.no: D092919
Running time: 117 minutes
Year: 2000
Pressing: 2000
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 30 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English for the hearing-impaired
Widescreen: 2.35:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £15.99
Extras: Behind-the-Scenes featurette - "The Film"

Director:

Wim Wenders

Cast:

Tom-Tom: Jeremy Davies
Eloise: Milla Jovovich
Skinner: Mel Gibson
Geronimo: Jimmy Smits
Dixie: Peter Stormare
Vivien: Amanda Plummer
Jessica: Gloria Stuart
Stanley Goldkiss :Harris Yulin
Izzy Goldkiss: Tim Roth (uncredited)

Oh dear. Where to begin? Well, The Million Dollar Hotel is described as a "futuristic detective thriller", but why or how remains a mystery. Apparently, the whole shebang takes place in a downtown L.A. residence for mentally-ill people who can't afford medical insurance. There are a couple of brief references to "being from the future" (and some dream-like sequences), but they are never followed up or even explained.

The story begins after one of the inhabitants - Izzy Goldkiss - decided to throw himself from the building's roof, but the circumstances were deemed suspicious and the FBI have been called in. Enter cynical Detective Skinner (Mel Gibson) in a neck-brace, nosing around and questioning the weirdos living there. Surreal? You betcha.

What really happened? Was there foul play? Is Tom-Tom responsible for bumping off his pal Izzy so he could persue waifish bookworm Eloise (Jovovich), Izzy's girlfriend? Or is everyone at The Million Dollar Hotel involved? More to the point, did anyone connected with the film watch the finished cut before they inflicted it on the world?

Though it is credited as "A Film By Wim Wenders", the Million Dollar Hotel has the unmistakable whiff of a rockstar vanity project. Bono, of Irish troupers U2, co-penned this story with the screenplay's writer Nicholas Klein - and in truth, only somebody with nascent experience in what makes a great script could seriously believe The Million Dollar Hotel's premise had much potential.

For this film is a labouriously dull exercise in cobbling together loose strands of pseudo-surreal nonsense in the name of Art (capital A intended). The motley assortment of dysfunctional caricatures are so poorly-sketched that they fail to engage on any level whatsoever.

Not only are these misfits bereft of credible behavioural traits, they are resolutely tiresome. The humour is woeful and falls miserably flat, and the streams of would-be intellectualising from main character Tom-Tom simply serve to underline the air of self-importance this project exudes. It's a wonderment in itself that Bono, Klein or Wenders thought anyone could be remotely interested in this vacuuous hogwash.

It reeks of masturbatory joy - as if these characters and their tiresome weirdness are creations of pure genius, rather than misguided attempts to be intruiging.

There is nothing here to celebrate, only two hours of tedium tempered by one of the most beautiful and mesmeric music scores in recent memory. Bono, in conjunction with longtime collaborators Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, cooks up an etheral brew of ambient textures and mournful jazz noodlings. Allied to Wender's typically atmospheric directorial style, the result is often stunning. Picture quality is very good, with excellent colour rendition and Wender's use of hazy tones looks very pretty.

Effectively though, The Million Dollar Hotel looks more like an extended U2 or REM music video than an actual feature film, with endless slow-motion camera tricks and off-kilter editing. As such, it unfortunately has the attendant sophomoric tendencies.

Unlike some discs where the film itself is lacking anything to recommend it but the extra features partly redeem matters, The Million Dollar Hotel is a poor product all around.

Bonus material is simply an 8-minute featurette called "The Film" which is the most baffling I've ever encountered. It begins as though it might be a fairly detailed look behind-the-scenes, with interview clips accompanying discussion on the opening few minutes of the film. Everyone's comments are cliched and laughably prententious (are they taking the mickey?), but then without notice, it's suddenly and abruptly over. Just like that. No beginning, no end, no form. It's amateurish, and quite unnacceptable when so many DVDs now offer comprehensive (or at least competent) documentaries of this type.

The only way I'd suffer through this again would be if an isolated score option were included, but sadly there isn't one. That would at least be something worth having.

Recently, much has been made of the falling standards in British film-making, and its propensity for pathetically cliched low-life scenarios. If nothing else, The Million Dollar Hotel at least provides evidence that the American *alternative* movie industry - buoyed by Fight Club, Magnolia, American Beauty and Being John Malkovich - is equally capable of witless self-indulgence.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS	0 0
OVERALL

Review copyright © Jason Maloney, 2000.

E-mail Jason Maloney

Check out Jason's homepage: The Slipstream.

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