FOUR ROOMS
A film review by Zach Douglas
Copyright 1996 Zach Douglas
Four rooms, four stories, four directors. The film is split four ways between directors: Aliison Anders (Mi Vida Loca), Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi), and Quentin Tarantino (Re-writes for "It's Pat", Just Kidding). Tarantino (hereforth, "QT") has a bit more influence over the picture as a whole, as he was also an executive producer, and even directed the animated title sequence. It's difficult to review this much hyped movie without reviewing all four pieces separately. For the sake of time and space though, I'll try not to go too in depth on each since this may end up lengthy anyways.
By now you probably know it's "Ted (Tim Roth) the bell hops first night on the job" at the classic but run-down Mon Signor Motel. It's New Years eve and Ted is in for a wild night. Allison Ander's room is Ted's first stop in the segment "Strange Brew". A coven of witches is convening there to perform a ritual to bring their Goddess back to life. The witches are a lively bunch including Valeria Golino (For some reason her most memorable performances to me have been Hot Shots and Pee Wee's Big Top), Madonna (Her acting hasn't really improved, but has gotten no worse), Ione Sky. Alicia Witt, and Lili Taylor. Together they begin to throw the ingredients in the cauldron, but it seems one didn't bring what she was supposed to. I won't go into it, but they need Ted's help. I was disapointed with the story here, as it was pretty straight forward when I expected something more clever like a short film might deliver. Also, isn't this a comedy? THere was also a lack of humor if so. Anders uses some cute special effects and screen wipes, but I didn't really find them attractive. Roth's Ted is most annoying here as it takes a while to get used to him playing the part that would have been more suitable for Cosmo Kramer than Mr. Orange. Enough said about room one, I found it rather uninteresting, but at least we get it out of the way first for...
The second room, Alexander Rockwell's "Two Sides to a Plate". Ted is trying to deliver some ice to the drunken party in 409 (Was that long haired yuppy scum Lawrence Bender? Again! I think so!) but he ends up in a different sort of party. Sigfried (David Proval) has his wife Angela (Jennifer Bales) in the ol' Marvin Nash position - bound and gagged and at gunpoint. From there, Sigfried has some good old fashioned fun with Ted as he refuses to let him leave. He pops some pills and continues to booze while he gives his wife and Ted the third degree. The story takes a minor turn, but it's an interesting situation left just sitting there. I was confused as again, there wasn't a lot of humor yet there was also nothing in the story to make up for this shortfall, like some interesting conclusion we are driving toward. Jennifer Beals is very good even while bound and gagged, but Ted is again flinchy and awkward throughout the segment. I'd like to be a better critic and say more about what was wrong with the segment, but it seems to me that the story being told just wasn't good enough to be interesting regardless of the acting or the director's style. Oh well, got those two out of the way, two of Hollwood's most talked about new comers up next.
Third Segment, Robert Rodriguez (The 7000 dollar man) directs, "The Misbehavers". Word on the street was that Rodriguez's segment blew the other three out of the water. Yet I didn't find this entirely true. Rodriguez's story DOES have some structure to it though. The segment revolves around Antonio Banderas and his Wife (Tamlyn Tomita) attempting to go out for a night on the town while leaving the kids 'home alone'. Yes, that's right Home Alone. So Father politely demands that Ted watch over the kids (or else) and slips him a quick $500. Of course, all does not go well with the kids, and wacky wild mayhem ensues. This segment was a lot better than the other two. The characters get some good, quick definition early on, and the it's off to the races. The main problem here seems that Rodriguez's style is quite restricted by the setting and characters. He wants to do his trade mark super-stylistic camera work - but on what? We see a nice take of Ted sweeping shoes of the bed and also of Ted turning the key in the lock. Ooh, Exciting. Also, it's supposed to be wacky fun with the two misbehaving' kids, yet Rodriguez seems to forget they are kids. There are many things that go harshly against the grain here including the language and some violence. I found these things mildly funny, but mostly awkward and bewildering in this setting. Overall though, nice work with a memorable conclusion. Definitely not bad at all. Which leads us to wonderboy himself, Tarantino.
QT takes the reigns a bit early as he has a short transition piece where Ted calls up a manager to try and get some help (Why, if the manager isn't Shocked Lady/Shot Lady herself from Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction!). But, his call to the manager is taken by one Marisa Tomei doing a HUGE stretch to play a stoned chick playing some nintendo after the big party. This was probably my favorite part of the entire movie! Tomei is excellent, and you can tell that the dialogue has made that sudden change, a change over to...the Tarantino Zone. Even Ted is slightly calmed now, speaking fluent English. Ted finally get to speak with the manager. She tells him to take care of the hotel's only Hollywood client if it's the only thing he does right the rest of the night. Flamboyant Movie Star, Chester Rush (Played by QT himself, imagine that) is that big star. So Ted makes the trip to the penthouse to deliver some bizarre items that the party requested, and from there on out it's full-fledged Tarantinoverse. In the penthouse are Chester, and his apparent parasite/friends Norman and Leo (Paul Caldron and Bruce Willis respectively, both in Pulp Fiction - Caldron is Paul, and that's up to ya'll' if his name doesn't ring a bell) and also Angela from down the stairs (Jennifer Beals character! Perhaps Sigfried was RIGHT to have tied her up!) Like QT's previous works, the characters yak about bullshit that has nothing to do with anything, yet somehow, it does. Also, you seem to remember hearing bits of dialogue in another movie some how - was it in..another QT movie? I think it was. Chester curses a lot and cozies up to Ted while Norman sits quietly and Leo is on the phone arguing with his wife. Once the gang feels ready though, they let Ted in on the secret of why they want him to hang out with them - to help them reenact an old episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents! You could feel the anticipation (curiosity?) of the audience rise instantly at that point. Chester then must sell Ted on staying to help them out. I'm going to stop right there and let you watch the rest because it was truly a great 20-25 minutes for me and I don't want to spoil anything as it took all I could do to avoid hearing what happened myself before watching it (Many have seen the original Hitchcock episode, although I'm sure it's quite a bit different!).
I found this segment to be imperfect, but pretty damn entertaining. I'll admit I'm a big QT fan, and he really puts more of a stylistic stroke onto the canvas in his segment where the others couldn't seem to find enough room to do so (perhaps that is why QT made sure HE got to film in the roomy penthouse!). Some of the camera work is amazing as the camera slowly moves and turns while the actors just keep spitting out lines, and eventually when the camera comes to rest, the actors are all lined up on screen in perfect form, right where QT wants them to be. He also shoots an incredibly long take (5-6-7 minutes or more?) and even shoots a scene with the character's shadows talking. The dialogue is funny, but nothing near as memorable as in his other works thus far. There is a LOT of cursing which could be distraction. I guess QT figured he would get his quota in this new time frame somehow. QT's acting is slightly flawed as usual, but not terrible. Caldron also didn't win my respect as I thought they could have found someone else either inside or out of the Tarantinoverse for this role (and QT's also). Willis is so-so but and Beals is even better than before, but it doesn't really matter, as all the characters get better collectively throughout the segment to pull off the punch line.
The segment is much like a condensed Tarantino movie. There's the B.S. which is like a shot to numb you and make you forget whatever it was you were thinking about, then the anticipation that something is going to happen, and then it builds (slowly, slowly), and then something happens and in a big way, and then you have a nice stylish ending, role the theme music. It's got everything, just squeezed down a little smaller for the limited time frame. OK, so I'm an obviously biased Tarantino fan, but if you don't agree that the end of this movie makes you think "Whew, it wasn't a total waste of time" - then I'll stick a red hot poker up my.. ahem (sorry another QT dialogue reference).
Well, I covered what I could and the major points of what I thought worked or didn't. Overall, it's just not a very good film. But, taken in parts, it does have some interesting moments. I failed to mention earlier, another big minus for me was some grotesqueness/toilet humor in the first three segments. All three contained something that wasn't very pretty (bodily fluids, references to bodily fluids, other icky things). None of them were very funny either, and somewhat low-brow which also seemed to go against the grain at times. Again, the setting seemed to handcuff the first three directors the most and it's obvious from their other works that they are no where close to talentless, just perhaps not as adept at these shorter pieces.
On the good side, it's a very different movie. Even different than other experimental movies where different stories/directors are combined. Tomei and Beals displayed the most talent and the acting all in all wasn't bad. Bad and good aside, if you are a true Tarantino fan, I think you'll eat up his latest offering and perhaps find some merit in the other three where you can. If you aren't, I can only hope you find at least ONE room in the building that you can enjoy!
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews