The BRWC Review: Hotel Artemis

18th July 2018

Set in the near-future, Hotel Artemis is a private, underground hospital run for the underworld elite. Bank robbers, gangsters, arms dealers and international assassins are given refuge between jobs so long as they follow the strict rules laid out by Nurse (Jodie Foster) and her orderly, Everest (David Bautista). Outside, the water riots bear down upon the city. Waikiki (Sterling K. Brown) his brother Honolulu (Brian Tyree Henry), Nice (Sofia Boutella) and Acapulco (Charlie Day) are each guests with their own ulterior motives as an incoming fifth guest threatens to make their stay a deadly one.

The seedy underbelly of John Wick meets John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 with the political backdrop of The Purge, but somehow not as good as any of them. Hotel Artemis delivers a taut thriller with some well-choreographed action in the final act but there’s a definite sense of the whole not being equal the sum of its parts. Chung Chung-hoon’s gorgeous cinematography and Cliff Martinez’ textured score enriches the world inhabited by the larger than life characters, but unfortunately those characters don’t get enough time to breathe, interact and ricochet off each other.

Jodie Foster and Sterling K. Brown lay a sturdy foundation for their characters by virtue of the fact that we spend more time with them than the others. David Bautista and Sofia Boutella offer layers of humour and ass-kickery but the feelings are fleeting and lack dimensionality. The ticking clock element that builds up, leading into the final act is depressurised with what turns out to be fleeting cameos from Jeff Goldblum and Zachary Quinto. Rhythmically and narratively, a sizeable chunk feels as though it was excised from Hotel Artemis and this is a crying shame

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Amidst the persistent threat of violence and dread that precedes the riot bearing down on the hospital there is a snappy, humorous streak, with Charlie Day being the brunt of many jokes, as the greasy arms dealer, “Acupulco”. Drew Pearce breathes life into a vibrant rogue’s gallery of characters but sadly Hotel Artemis vibes more with Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces than it does a cult Carpenter classic.

Hotel Artemis is released in the UK, July 20th

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