The new movie “Bad Times at the El Royale” tries very hard to be different and it does succeed in being different. I have never seen a movie like this that starts with Hotel with a red line that runs through it dividing its location in half between a Nevada section and a California section. Unfortunately the movie is way too long – over two hours, when the entire story could have been told in 90 minutes. The conclusion and the addition of a character outside of the hotel contains too many loose ends and in the end does not make enough sense.

This film stars Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth with a cameo by Nick Offerman. I thought the acting was good throughout the strange story. The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is a solid 72% with 7.5 on IMDB, but I give this movie a marginal recommendation because it was too long and too boring in several areas.