Four Rooms

 1/4

Starring: Tim Roth

Rated R for Pervasive Strong Language, Sexuality and Some Drug Use

"Four Rooms" is a movie you stare at in stupefied boredom.  Rather than laughing like I was supposed to, I was wondering how so much talent could end up producing a film so worthless.

The concept sounds promising.  Four Miramax wunderkinds, Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, each write and direct four interconnected short films.  They all take place on New Year's Eve at the Mon Signor Hotel and have Ted (Roth) the new bellhop front and center.  Unfortunately all four shorts are junk.

The first short is 'The Missing Ingredient," which was directed by Allison Anders.  In it, Ted squares off against a coven of witches trying to resurrect a dead witch placed under a curse for forty years.  The twist is that one of the witches (Ione Skye) failed to get the required man juice for the ritual, and has to get what she needs from the befuddled Ted.  It's not a great idea for a short, and as such feels more like an R-rated "SNL" sketch that doesn't work.  But with clever writing it could work.  The problem is that it spends so much time setting up the story that, just when things are getting interesting, it ends.

The next one is Alexandre Rockwell's "The Wrong Man," which has a drug-addled, cuckolded husband (David Proval) waving a gun around at Ted, accusing the innocent bellhop of sleeping with his wife (Jennifer Beals), who is now tied and gagged to a chair.  This could be a comedy/thriller hybrid, but the husband and wife are never sharply defined.  Is the husband really angry?  Is he high?  Or is this a game?  More importantly, did I care?  No, I didn't.

Of the four shorts, the best received was "The Misbehavers," directed by Robert Rodriguez.  In it, an intimidating Mexican gangster (Antonio Banderas) pays Ted five hundred smackers to babysit his kids (Lana McKissack and Danny Verduzco) while he and his wife (Tamalyn Tomita) head out for the festivities.  Naturally, Murphy's law is in full force; anything that can go wrong, does.  This is classic farce, or it would be, if it was funnier.  But there's no momentum, no timing, not building comic energy.  It's like champagne gone flat.

Finally, there's "The Man from Hollywood," directed by Quentin Tarantino.  Taking inspiration from an Alfred Hitchcock TV episode, it has a few drunk members of the Hollywood elite making a bet.  If Norman (Calderon) can light his lighter 10 times consecutively, he gets Chester's (Tarantino) sports car.  If not, he loses his pinky.  Ted is offered $1000 to do the deed if necessary.  One would think that anything from Quentin Tarantino would be lively and fun, but it isn't.  It's mostly watching and listening to Quentin Tarantino talk.  The acclaimed filmmaker doesn't have as much range and ability as an actor as he thinks he does, but he's a live wire here, displaying a lot of energy and enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, the dialogue (QT's signature) is bland and the short lacks tension.

Despite an all-star cast (including Bruce Willis, who remains uncredited due to a conflict with the Screen Actor's Guild), the film's cast lacks any truly good performances.  Antonio Banderas would have been funnier if he had better lines, but he doesn't have much to do other than look menacing (which he does).  One would think that Tim Roth, one of the best actors in the business, would be an ace in the hole, but that would be misguided.  Roth appears to have wandered in from a 40's screwball comedy by way of Jim Carrey.  It's easy to see what he is going for, but like everything else in this movie, he doesn't pull it off.  Rather than a likable goof, Ted is a spastic twit that starts to grate after just a few minutes.  The performance belongs in a different movie and feels like a square peg in a round hole here.

This is a waste of time and talent.  It's boring and almost never funny (I chuckled twice in 90 minutes).  What's maddening is that there are plenty of times when I could see it almost work.  But time and time again scenes don't land, and the dearth of laughter generating material is almost painful.

"Four Rooms" is about as much fun as a New Year's Day hangover.