Too-trendy `Four Rooms' falls short of directors' credentials
Four Rooms came out during the Christmas break, so if you were going to see it, you probably already have. If you haven't, don't consider yourself deprived: For all its potential, the movie turns out to be a big disappointment.
If you think about it, the idea of Four Rooms isn't really all that original. Films like Plaza Suite and Mystery Train have already set several independent vignettes in the same hotel. What makes Four Rooms different is that each story is given to a different director: Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, each of which are young, trendy and, above all, good.
So it's a sure formula for success? Nope, just a formula for high expectations. Expectations that get shattered by stories that just don't entertain as much as we'd like.
The movie takes place on New Year's Eve at the Mon Signor Hotel. The film's four stories have one character in common: Ted (Tim Roth), the bellboy who's stuck running the entire hotel by himself all night. Four different times he gets called into four different rooms to participate in four very different dark comedies.
The first story, "The Missing Ingredient," is directed by Allison Anders ( Mi Vida Loca ) and centers around a coven of witches (among whom are Madonna, Valerie Golina and Ione Skye) who have assembled in the Mon Signor to resurrect their goddess, Diana. To complete their magic stew, they only need one more little ingredient, one that only a man like Ted can provide.
In "The Wrong Man," directed by Alexandre Rockwell ( In the Soup ), Ted delivers champagne to the wrong room, where a jealous husband lies in wait for another Theodore who's been sleeping with his wife, whom he has tied up. Ted fights for his life while trying to convince the drunken, psychotic husband that he's the wrong guy.
Both of these stories have a lot of potential for humor, but they just fall flat. "The Missing Ingredient" ends abruptly and unsatisfactorily while "The Wrong Man" just gets confusing and weird.
The third story, "The Misbehavers," directed by Robert Rodriguez ( Desperado ), is the best of the four segments. Ted is enlisted to baby-sit the kids of a smooth-talking, slick-haired character (Antonio Banderas) and his wife while they go out for New Year's Eve. As the title suggests, Ted's trustees get in trouble when he's out.
What makes "The Misbehavers" funny is the cartoonish comedy in both its action and its dialogue. It plays like some demented Tex Avery cartoon, trans- formed into live-action.
The last story, "The Man from Hollywood," is directed by Quentin Tarantino ( Pulp Fiction ). He stars in it, too, as a big movie producer who wants Ted to help him and his friends play out a bet they saw on an old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." If Ted accepts the offer, and the $1,000, his task would be to perform an amputation on the loser with a well-sharpened hatchet.
The last 10 minutes of this story are fantastic, but the first 20 drag. Tarantino wastes so much time on pointless dialogue and focusing the camera on himself that you just want it to end by the time it gets to the good part.
The last 10 minutes redeem "The Man from Hollywood" somewhat, and the denouement is mercifully short. If anything, this final vignette and its ending provide a satisfying end to the entire movie, but at great expense to our attention span.
All four of the directors suffer from an overzealousness to show off their trendy styles. With Rockwell, throwing the camera in every which angle makes the views messy and confusing; with Tarantino, trying to get some cool dialogue and unique shots in just makes things contrived.
The damning quality of the movie is that the directors tried too hard to make it cool. But Four Rooms does have redeeming qualities: Tim Roth's acting and the segment directed by Robert Rodriguez.
If you're a fan of any of these directors, wait for the video. If you're not a fan of these directors, just forget it; trust me, you won't like it.
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