Hotel Noir

The Plot.

A hardened detective lays low in a darkened downtown Los Angeles hotel room, biding his time as he patiently awaits a gang of vengeful hit men that are on his tail.

Throughout the course of this one fateful night the detective becomes entangled in a web of girls, guns, and money, as he enlists the help of the many intriguing hotel guests that he encounters in an effort to evade the grave fate that lies in store.

Wow. Written like a bad stage play.

Directed like a HS effort.

And acted like they can't get out of a paper bag.

It's horrible.

For the first 35 minutes i thought this was a parody/ comedy. It's not.

It's just a disaster.

"Are you a cop? Why? You ask questions like a cop. How's that? Like you're not really interested in the answer, but the way I answer. I'm a cop. No kidding. You're on a stakeout? I was gonna hop a train. Changed your mind? Missed my train."

"Hotel Noir" takes place in the infamous 50s. The years of glitter and glamour with its jazzy mood. When men walked around like Humphrey Bogart and every woman seemed to be a diva. Those were the days that lightning a cigarette wasn't associated with a deadly disease, but with fun and sensuality. The time in which a microphone looked like a significantly over-sized toaster and women wore bras as if sophisticated cruise missiles were hidden in it. The same wigwam-shaped things Madonna became famous with, many years later. Men and women had conversation as if they were performing in a stage play with rapid dialogue lines which sounded shrewd and ingenious. It was the Charleston time and the time the mafia ruled with Dick Tracy-like gangsters.

Unfortunately this rather old-fashioned-feeling film reminded me of the dull theater shows I had to watch when I went to high school. At the beginning I still had this hopeful thought that this could be a pretty entertaining movie. And this because of the fact that they managed to convince a few well-known actors to cooperate, such as Dany Devito, Rufus "I'll follow you down" Sewell, Rosario "Trance" Dawson and Carla "San Andreas" Gugino. But despite the well-known cast, the film felt like a third-rate detective novel in which the relationships between the protagonists revealed themselves painfully slow. And the stories are intertwined such as the spaghetti in a Spaghetti Bolognaise.

And that's also the biggest drawback of this film. The complexity and quantity of twists made it a really hard to follow film. It all feels cheap and minimalistic as well. Both in terms of story as scenography. I bet the limited budget, this movie was made with, probably has something to do with that. And it's not really intriguing or exciting at all. The conversation between Felix (Rufus Sewell) and Hanna Click (Carla Gugino) is the most fascinating part of the whole movie. A series of short questions and answers the two protagonists are shooting at each other. Amazingly shrewd sometimes. But ultimately it's still nothing more than a colorless film, trying to emulate a similar film from a successful era in film history. A game of Cluedo was more exciting in those days.

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I came to IMDb looking for a review to decide on whether to watch this and there wasn't one so I let that decide in the movie's favor as I figured to write one for it.

I liked it. Any movie with the word 'noir' in the title has work to do to avoid the clichés that the genre forces it to reference. The characters have to be one-dimensional and fit the molds. The dialog has to be clipped and clever. Yet this movie is homage to noir as well as being a fun yarn in its own right.

It's stylish and stylized with narration and inner monologues from multiple characters. There's flashbacks and story tangents from all the main characters, that stand on their own as but also get sewn together by the end. It's black and white but you stop noticing that early on because the medium matches the tone of the movie so well.

If you're in the mood for light story-telling that's well thought out then Hotel Noir is a fine place to spend an evening.

As I watched this, I'm reading the screenplay in my mind, and my eyes and mind popped. Great writing, great conversion from paper to print to film.

Danny Devito, early years you'd think from the setting, tells the tale.

But actually, I'm watching the 2016 re-release, aptly re-named Sin City. The original film, Hotel Noire, apparently 2012. Yet it seems to be 1940 something.

The cast expands, marvelously. Rosario Dawson. Kevin Connolly. Michael B. Jordan.

Malin Åkerman. Mandy Moore and Cameron Richardson, Rufus Sewell. Haven't researched it yet, but would love to know the House and team, including the screenwriter that wrote this.

Kudos.

Couldn't disagree more with the other reviewer.

While this might not be the greatest Film Noir flick ever made or have very strong character development it was pretty entertaining with a well told story and great cast. While story develops slowly it never felt boring or artificial.

Reminded me a bit of 2013 Mob City so if you saw it and liked it, you will probably enjoy City of Sin.

Not sure what else I can say without spoilers. I would however recommend watching it if you like film noirs outside of Frank Miller cinematizations.