Los Angeles, 1958: a detective holes up in a downtown hotel awaiting killers to come get him. During the course of one night he will meet various occupants of the hotel and the truth of how he came to be in his present situation will be revealed.
Similar titles
You May Also Like
Reviews
How sad is this?
Great Film overall
Good concept, poorly executed.
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
The Plot.A hardened detective lays low in a darkened downtown Los Angeles hotel room, biding his time as he patiently awaits a gang of vengeful hit men that are on his tail. Throughout the course of this one fateful night the detective becomes entangled in a web of girls, guns, and money, as he enlists the help of the many intriguing hotel guests that he encounters in an effort to evade the grave fate that lies in store.Wow. Written like a bad stage play. Directed like a HS effort.And acted like they can't get out of a paper bag.It's horrible.For the first 35 minutes i thought this was a parody/ comedy. It's not.It's just a disaster.
I watched this carefully and noted the comments from other reviewers, and I wanted to find something to disagree with them so I could offer a more balanced opinion. I think it's important to have a wide variety of opinions from different people so that you are left with a much more accurate impression of what the movie is about. However I failed, there's no saving graces, it's rubbish. It is in fact an anachronism and I suspect Danny DeVito signed up to it as he simply doesn't get parts anymore so he'll grasp at anything. More than likely Malin Ackerman did the same, she realises she's out in the cold and wants to come back in but can't grasp that she can't act. Robert Forster is the only saving grace of this film, he's consistently excellent and believable but his role was so small that he did nothing to lift the movie. Don't waste you time, I'd rather do housework than watch it again.
This was a god awful endless snooze.It starts out with Danny talking bout his life as shower door salesman,and how one good looking women came on to him once. Fron there it's just a bumpy downhill ride,with endless monologues and dialogues that never really manged to lift the movie,nor keep you awake.It tries to be this really clever film noir,but you are neither entertained by nor interested in any of the characters nor their faith. You just want it to end.I have never given Malin ackerman all that much thought as anything else than eye candy,so far she hasn't disappointed me yet.Her and Carla Gugino mostly work as eye candy and some lame sort of femme fatale, to draw people to the movie by name association .In short stay away from this
there are several key ingredients present here, which could have potentially yielded great results, but unfortunately a lack of aim and some grave casting errors doom this flick to mediocrity.first the good: the picture looks great, especially considering the budget. solid but not exceptional camera-work. malin akerman, Danny devito, Carla gugino and especially Robert foster look and sound great and are just right for their parts. their efforts keep the rating at slightly above average.the bad: the dialogue has no feel for the time period. it is full of phrases and expressions that don't feel right for the time. Rosario Dawson and Kevin connolly are completely miscast. especially connolly sounds and looks like this could be some sort of shrooms-induced "entourage" dream-sequence. his appearance immediately made me think of Tobey maguire in "the good German" who also stuck out like a sore thumb in that cast. Rufus sewell at least looks right for the part but his voice and accent do not.even though the flick is coming in at a rather reasonable 97 minutes, these crawl by and during the Nth musical number that goes on for far too long you can't help checking your watch.(mild spoilers) the 'joke' ending and the aimlessly wandering plot add to the somewhat unsatisfying experience.