[yasr_overall_rating]
Set in riot-torn, near-future Los Angeles, ‘Hotel Artemis’ follows the Nurse, who runs a secret, members-only emergency room for criminals.
Remember those scenes in the “John Wick” movies where the characters visit the Continental Hotel in New York and are specifically told, “no business on its premises?” That is basically the premise for “Hotel Artemis.” Set in the near future, June 2028 to be precise, the Hotel Artemis is a refuge for villains, assassins, thieves, and arms dealers who need to find asylum, whether for a night or a week. And nobody is permitted to bring any weapons onto the premises, otherwise, they’ll have to answer to the hulking Everest (Dave Bautista) who does not suffer fools gladly. Jodie Foster plays the movie’s central character, simply titled The Nurse, and if a patron enters the hotel injured, either from a gunshot or stab wound, she has the technology to patch them up and send them safely on their way. As for the majority of people in L.A., the hotel doesn’t exist, it is just a myth, a rundown, dilapidated building that nobody pays any attention to. Unless they’re a bad guy and have a membership.
The story takes place during the worst riots to ever hit Los Angeles and people are clashing with police in the streets because the state’s largest water company has just shut down its supply to the city’s population. Holed up in the hotel is an arms dealer, Acapulco (Charlie Day), a French assassin, Nice (Sofia Boutella), and two thieves, Waikiki (Sterling K. Brown) and his injured brother Honolulu (Brian Tyree Henry), who have just arrived from a botched bank robbery. Nobody is allowed to use their real names, hence, the nicknames. While the power keeps going out in the hotel, the Nurse gets a phone call from Crosby (Zachary Quinto), who just happens to be the son of the Wolf King (Jeff Goldblum), the city’s biggest kingpin. Unbeknownst to Waikiki, an item he stole in the bank robbery contains jewels with an estimated cost of almost $20 million and when he realizes that it belongs to the Wolf King, he hastily makes plans for he and his brother to escape but all that goes out the window when he shows up at the hotel, injured, seeking medical assistance from the Nurse.
As the story unfolds, we get to know a little more about each of the central characters and we discover that Nice is there from a self-inflicted gunshot wound which allowed her entry to the hotel so she could get closer to her next target but who that is, we won’t know until later on. Acapulco is a loud-mouthed, temperamental wannabe gangster whose bark is worse than his bite and who is biding his time until his private helicopter takes him to Mexico. Everest has worked at the hotel as the Nurse’s righthand man for years, taking out the trash when necessary and making sure that all of the hotel’s guests abide by the rules, and the Nurse hasn’t set foot outside the hotel in over twenty years as she suffers from agoraphobia, a condition that suits her just fine as she looks at the outside world as one big cesspool. Kind of ironic as the hotel caters to those who have made the world what it is. When the Nurse receives an emergency call from Morgan (Jenny Slate), a cop who is in the back alley, injured, and asking to be let in, she struggles with opening the door. Everest reminds her that no cops can ever set foot inside the hotel but she insists he let her in.
Come to find out, before she was the hotel’s caretaker and resident caregiver, she once led a normal life and even had a son, Beau. Morgan was her next-door neighbor and used to play with Beau before he supposedly died of a drug overdose. Everest transports Morgan’s body into the hotel and using a series of hidden passageways, manages to sneak her into an empty room, where the Nurse tends to her injuries. When the Wolf King arrives with a large entourage, she informs Everest to keep Morgan out of sight and takes the Wolf King into another room to administer medical assistance, telling his men that they have to wait outside the main entrance. While catching up on old times, she injects him with a sedative so her machine can patch him up but right before he passes out, he mentions her son’s name. As the riots in the city worsen, and tensions in the hotel begin to flare up, everyone begins turning on each other and when the Wolf King finally awakens, the Nurse demands to know how he knew her son and the answer he gives her, shakes her to her very core. As the Wolf King’s men begin to force their way into the hotel, the Nurse tells Everest to take Morgan out the back door and it is every man (and woman) for themselves.
While the premise is intriguing, the film often feels disjointed and incoherent. The idea of a hotel that houses only criminals, who are not allowed to conduct business while on the property, is both fascinating and appealing but director Drew Pearce, in his directorial debut, bites off more than he can chew. This is more of a character piece, rather than an action film and merging the two genres is a mistake, pick one or the other, trying to blend the two is very risky and here, unfortunately, it does not pay off. Some of the most memorable moments from the “John Wick” movies happened while at the Continental Hotel with only dialogue and interplay transpiring between various characters, that’s what Pearce should have strived for here. By all means, have some drama, that would be expected but trying to balance moments of character exposition while everything is blowing up around you, just doesn’t work. I would have much rather watched intellectual conversation between a group of offbeat and divergent characters than everybody just turning on each other so they could each highlight their individual skills, whether it be hand-to-hand combat, gunplay, or knife fighting. Jodie Foster, in her few moments of character development, proves why she won two Oscars, it’s just a pity we don’t see more of her these days.
In theaters Friday, June 8th
