Hotel!

Every opportunity for a gag is taken and the cast are brilliant!

If there was ever a case for Television Movies over Cinema, then this is it. In the style of Naked Gun and Airplane, and with that oh so wonderful British wit mixed in, Hotel! manages to triumph over it's influence as a fantastically daft and hilariously funny movie. The cast is great, Paul McGann showing his versatility as an actor, and Bradley Walsh as funny as always (which is fairly funny). Also, an interesting sidenote is an uncredited cameo by Peter Sallis as the voice on the radio. If you like your comedy funny, then this is the one for you. Just don't ask me where you can find it, I've been waiting for a repeat on TV or a DVD release for ages.

So it seems that Channel 5 proprietor Richard Desmond had the idea of making his own all-star slapstick comedy film in the vein of the AIRPLANE! or NAKED GUN trilogy. He's the guy who concocted this mess of a film, in which a low budget doesn't put off a whole host of stars appearing and embarrassing themselves with routine frequency. The writer of this tripe, Laurie Rowley, handled some decent comedy back in the day like THE TWO RONNIES and SPITTING IMAGE, so he must have been having a real off day with this one.

The story is a scattershot spoof of DIE HARD, with the US president and his team of bodyguards holed up in a FAWLTY TOWERS type of British hotel and doing battle with a terrorist gang headed by the typecast Art Malik. A wooden Paul McGann is the erstwhile hero who dons a sweaty vest and does his best Bruce Willis impression throughout.

Sadly, the quality of the jokes in this TV movie is simply awful. There are whole routines ripped off from other movies, like the three FBI guys with the silly names routine taken from AIRPLANE 2: THE SEQUEL. The only one who comes out of this with their reputation intact is Keeley Hawes, whose surreal sight gags are the best thing about the film. Elsewhere, we have cringy turns from overactors like Lysette Anthony and Peter Capaldi; Brian Conley as a random wannabe American cop; Lee Majors hamming it as the President; even Gary Rhodes in a random cameo. It's a mess, and has to be seen to be believed.

This is a rare curiosity. An original drama made for Channel 5 that is not a soap opera. However its one thing paying homage to the Airplane/Naked Gun films but here they steal lines and scenarios from those movies but they make it less funnier.

The drama is just one long endless groans as you try to guess the punchlines and sight gags. You might be better of sticking on a DVD of The Naked Gun or Airplane.

It has a starry cast includes two Doctor Who's on display with Peter Capaldi as the weaselly hotel manager and Peter McGann as the dashing hero saving the lives of the President of the USA, the hotel staff and guests when they are taken over by a bunch of dastardly terrorists.

However you will soon tire of the unoriginal humour.

Aside from comparisons to the disaster spoofs from the 1970's and 80's, this movie attempts to spoof the terrorists ransoming a world leader plots from the 1990's and onwards. So I'm judging this by the genre of slapstick comedy films from the 1920's onwards.

In short, IT DOES NOT WORK! Very poor attempts at humor, relentlessly lined up one right after another. In-your-face slaps instead of sly winks. The actors ran out of scenery to chew and resorted to sawdust. What plot there was fell onto the "over cooked noodle" and kept running away whimpering.

The only redeeming funny part was the final chase scene. Then the LAPD and 3-Stooges-FBI agents ruin it.

Do not waste your time on this one.