The Million Dollar Hotel

A once proud hotel, still brandishing its gaudy moniker, has really let itself go. High in the sky, iron letters, clinging to a metal frame work and dotted with star white glowing bulbs to form the letters, proclaim the name for all to see: The Million Dollar Hotel. It is now populated that rejects that aren't quite the clichéd mental cases associated with movie crazies (this is Wim Wenders, give him some credit) but they aren't necessarily as all together going to make you as uncomfortable as the mentally ill person you'd likely have the real chance of meeting if you dropped by down town L A one night in the real world. They're quirky and funny and crazy. You like them all a little bit. Well I do anyway. God bless them they, for the most part, are not sitting around waiting on death and watching TV (all though there is a lot of TV watching). No, for the most part, in just about every moment they have, they're swinging for the fences with their crazy. All or nothing crazy.

The film was conceived of and co-written by Bono (of U2) and Christopher Klein, with Wim Wenders directing. Bono, both with U2 and with a band collected for the scoring of the film (including Daniel Lanois and John Hassle) put together music that hangs out in weird places with weird people and thus finds itself very much at home within the story we've got here.

For what it's worth, what we've got is a film not about anything you could possibly gather by reading a description of the film. But, for fun, here's what you get in this goodie bag. First, an unsteady alliance of a handful of the residents of the hotel that involves an art scam of sorts that could make them rich. The art in question? Tar. Big, six foot canvases of black, black tar. Painted by a man (Jimmy Smits) who believes he's an Indian chief when in reality he's an angry pothead who dresses like an Indian chief.

Also, a very against type Mel Gibson plays an FBI investigator on the search for the killer (if there is one) of a junkie resident of the hotel who happens to be the estranged son of a very powerful (tight with a congressman or two) Jewish media mogul. But was there even a killer at all? There has to be, as the mogul reminds Mel's Detective Skinner, because there is no lower sin for a Jew than suicide.

And, our third nifty good-time plot-ish element to the story is that of unconditional love. And if this movie's about anything, it's that. By the way, our protagonist, the village idiot skater/beggar's butler Tom-Tom (brilliant performance by Jeremy Davies by the way), happens to be in love with another against type performance from super model/action star/zombie killer Milla Jovovich. Here she is a drugged up, sort of prostitute, bookworm who doesn't wear shoes. Except for that one pair of shows...and then she loses them.

Quick note. She doesn't give him the time of day but only because she considers herself invisible. Her grandmother (I think) lives with her. She's a hoot. Can I say hoot? Is that allowed? Anyway, Gloria Stuart (Oscar nominee from Titanic) has a blast with the part. As do, I'm guessing, everyone else with their respective parts. We've got a drunk (Bud Cort of Harold and Maude) in big, dark sunglasses that we spy once in a cowboy hat and Speedo. He may have been at one point been an intellectual drunk but most of that intellect has long since drowned, the important thing is he still sounds smart. A man (Peter Stormare of Prison Break) who may or may not be really British who is convinced he wrote all of the Beatles good songs and is unknown to the world because of, you guessed it, a vast conspiracy. A heart broke crazy woman with a violent temper (Amanda Plummer seems to be who you hire for violent/crazy). A man-child named Tito, who I don't believe ever speaks. And Izzie Goldkiss (Tim Roth), the murder victim in question who happens to be dead before the movie even begins.

Well, I did my best to write another review where I meandered and didn't talk about the movie. I kind of got off track and actually talked about the movie, but trust me, you don't know a blessed thing based on anything I've barfed up for you here. It's a really beautiful shot piece of storytelling that really deserves a good viewing. It has a point or two to make, but, just like the residents, swung for the fence with it's own point of view and way of presenting it. The movie, like Tom Tom, just doesn't know how else to express itself.

I guess that means that if you call it a bad movie, you could be right. Fair enough. But if I call it a very good movie, I'm also right.

One man's weird is another man's glass of ice tea.

In the opening scene, Tom Tom gets a running start and leaps from the rooftop of the hotel, falling all the way down to the street below.

Just thought you should know that.