The Million Dollar Hotel.

I admit it, here and now, I’m a sucker for Wim Wenders films. I’ve liked everything I’ve seen from him, though, looking at the IMDB, I find he’s done a lot more films than I’ve actually encountered. His best known works would have to be Wings of Desire (remade by Hollywood and retitled City of Angels) and it’s sequel Faraway So Close. Another of his films, though not as well received, is Until the End of the World, an extremely long futuristic piece starring William Hurt as a scientist who has invented a machine that lets blind people see through the eyes of others. It’s an incredibly visual piece that, despite it’s length, enthralls the viewed.

Wenders sets this film in a mythical version of Downtown Los Angeles, at a down and out seedy hotel that is the home for all sorts of kooks, weirdos and other mentally deficients. Mel Gibson, acting like he is just as out of place in an art film as he really is, shows up at the hotel to investigate the suicide of Izzy Goldstein, the son of a wealthy businessman. Izzy jumped off the roof of the hotel before the film starts, or did he? Gibson, as Detective Skinner who appears as a modern Frankenstein with a back and neck harness, does his best straight man routine, as he tours the building. It is here where he meets the insane hooker Eloise (a perfectly cast Milla Jovanovich), the oddly artistic Geronimo (Jimmy Smits), Dixie (an unrecognizable Peter Stǿremare) who thinks he was in the Beatles, and the other denizens of the building including the always weird Amanda Plummer, and Gloria Stuart (last seen as the old Rose in Titanic). Skinner’s tour-guide is the building gofer boy, Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies), who may, or may not be actually crazy. Tom Tom is also our narrator, with the entire film taking place in an incredible flashback.

The plot meanders in and out of the building as Skinner attempts to prove that Izzy (who is played in a flashback by Tim Roth) was murdered. Complicating matters is that Izzy is perceived in the media as a great artist, even though he wasn’t, and the hotel residents try to cash in on their "tar art" that is really created by Geronimo. Oh, and Tom Tom and Eloise have a budding romance that is complicated by their individual pathos. Finally, Skinner drops a verbal bomb late in the film (I won’t give it away, but it will make your jaw drop), finally cementing the surreality of this flick.

I heard about this film earlier this year, when it was released in the theaters, but it disappeared almost immediately, for no real reason, other than it opened on 10 screens nationwide and did a whopping Thirty Thousand in receipts. That’s 30 thousand, not thirty million. Just having Gibson’s name on the marquee should have been enough for big box-office (and despite what you may think, this role is not a small cameo, it’s a huge part). It doesn’t matter though, this is a great film, and one well worth renting, if just for the atmosphere alone. Watching this film reminded me of the first time I saw City of Lost Children, or Brazil. Wenders creates a world that is only slightly removed from our reality, but nontheless, it is a different world, and that’s what I liked about it. Check it out of your local Blockbuster, because if you don’t, you’re missing out.

My Rating: **** out of 5.