Four Rooms - Movie review
Ah, hotels. Wonderful strange places where you get to meet awesome people from all walks of life, enjoy fine drinks, sleep like a king, and exchange jokes and pleasantries with the witty staff. Well, that’s Penta at least. And great hotels in general. What about the not-so-great ones?
Either things are bland to the point of boredom, or… just plain terrifying. Enter the world of “Four Rooms”, a hilarious black comedy in four acts – which is turning 25 this very December. This movie is what happens when you take Roald Dahl’s short stories and let a bunch of crazy directors run with it. One of them being Quentin Tarantino. Oh yes, now you get the idea... Throw in a star-studded cast (Antonio Banderas, Tim Roth, Madonna, Bruce Willis), and you have all the ingredients to an explosive take on hotel life.
Ted is on his first night on the job as a receptionist, and he has no idea what is waiting for him. Things start off pretty well, when a group of beautiful women get together for a rendezvous in the Honey Moon. Poor Ted will soon learn a valuable lesson working in a hotel: be friendly, but don’t get carried away…
Things quickly descend into madness during the second act, where our hero ends up in between a husband-wife duo he’d rather never have met. “Four Rooms” then truly takes off with its third episode, where Ted accepts a $500 tip to baby sit two innocent children while their parents go out for a wild night in Los Angeles. Oh no Ted, not worth the money.
Finally, for the grand finale, the penthouse. A group of friends. Lots of champagne. A bet. And an unusual list of items kindly requested, one of them being a hatchet “as sharp as the Devil himself”. You don’t need to know the movie to imagine Ted’s first night on the job won’t be as relaxed as he expected.
Check out the trailer, and rest assured that your next stay at Penta won’t be SO BLOODY EXCITING (strange promise for us to make, but you’ll thank us for that).
Picture credit: “Four Rooms” © 1995 - A Band Apart / Miramax Films