Hotel Atermis

There’s been an increase in films with a certain confident, funny, subversive tone and language in recent years. Shane Black is getting the long-overdue credit (and jobs) that have long seen him as a cult favourite. Phil Lord & Chris Miller have had great success, and much headline space, in high profile roles. Drew Pearce has been quietly creating quite the CV, as right-hand-man to Black on the excellent Iron Man 3, and story work on other Marvel properties and Missions: Impossible.

Hotel Artemis sees Pearce’s graduation to the director’s chair, and he’s been very open about what he wanted to create, and the route he’s taken to avoid compromise to his vision. It is, however, evident that his is an inexperienced voice at this level. His insistence to avoid studio input, so that his script could pass uncensored, is telling in the final product. Whether it’s the lack of studio input where the script would have a couple more rounds of touches, or the hybrid writer/director role, but Pearce’s dialogue is a little indulgent.

You can understand Pearce’s passion for his project: A near future, where a secret hotel / hospital harbours criminals. It’s a bottle film, with the majority of the runtime spent inside the four walls of the future-noir Art Deco titular hotel. A stunning cast (Jodie Foster, Sterling K Brown, Sofia Boutella, Charlie Day, Dave Bautista) are on board, and game. Each of the characters are (code)named after the suite they inhabit, themselves named after holiday destinations of the 1920’s. Brown is excellent as Waikiki, providing  the weight, menace and sympathy to his troubled bank-robber brother; Boutella steals scenes as the seductive, lethal Nice. A couple of cameos will either prove distracting or excellent, depending on your mood and inclination.

The claustrophobic setting is beautifully realised. However, the building blocks don’t quite all fall satisfactorily into place. There are interesting ideas served, which never really coalesce into a convincing whole. Pearce is a talent, and hopefully will find a process which will enable a more rounded product as a director.

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