Hotel Artemis Plot Summary:
Set in a near dystopian future, Nurse Thomas (Jodie Foster) houses a group of dangerous criminals, thugs, and killers in a members-only hospital and hideout. While danger lurks outside in a riot-ravaged L.A., tension begins to build upon the arrival of The Wolf King (Jeff Goldblum) who is in need of medical care.
Drew Pearce’s directorial debut offers many amenities but ultimately provides few accommodations in story, structure, or sense. Not even a lousy complimentary breakfast.
In a time where more often than not, films center on the fate of the world hanging in the balance from a mad titan or an impending alien attack, it’s sometimes a sigh of relief to sit back and take in something more contained in terms of scale and story. That was one of the aspects that I found interesting watching the previews for Hotel Artemis. The story primarily stays within the walls of the aforementioned retreat. The building, which is a towering landmark that stands in a ravaged L.A. The time is set in the near future where the state is nearing collapse as civilians are up in arms with a cooperation responsible for contaminating the clean drinking water. For the time being, the safest place in the city is inside the Artemis which is only available to its members.
The hospital is led by The Nurse played by Jodie Foster, she’s a through and through professional who treats incoming injured criminals while housing some past trauma of her own. Little does she know, that trauma wont stay down very long. At her side is her Orderly and bodyguard, Everest (Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy). Together the two find themselves in company with a good-hearted criminal, named Sherman (Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us), his critically wounded brother Lev (Brian Tyree Henry), a French Assassin (Sofia Boutella, The Mummy, Atomic Blonde), a loud-mouth arms dealer (Charlie Day, Horrible Bosses) and more.
The hospital itself provides an intriguing notion as a safe haven for criminals. No guns, no killing, and it houses members only. If you’re not a member, you’re out on the street. It gives off a nice Continental vibe from the John Wick universe. We get a few interesting scenes with the characters interacting and bouncing off each other given how much they dislike one another. Things take a turn when it comes to light that The Wolf King, the cities most notorious underground crime boss is making his way to the hospital for care. Alongside him is his heavily armed gang that may have issues with some of the patient’s given recent activities.
The most jarring and troublesome aspect of the film is the pacing. We’re given so much exposition and world building at such a breakneck speed as if the audience is on a catapult. The plotting is rushed way too much with dialogue, plot information quickly thrown away. It gives off the feeling that it wants to get the plot out of the way quickly to get to what’s in store, but that’s another problem the story suffers, there isn’t much more to tell once that’s out of the way.
Once The Wolf King arrives, the film stops dead and is forced into a corner. The film has a major issue with identifying what it wants to be, whether that being a pulp dystopian action film or a character driven ensemble and because of that it falters starting at this point in the story leading to its climatic decline. The climax is a tremendous letdown and the film is quickly wrapped up along with many of the character arcs.
The cast of characters are pretty hit or miss as well. With such an entertaining cast you’d expect a little more than what you end up with. Jodie Foster commands her scenes with ease given how little she has to go on. She portrays a lot with just silence which is great. Sterling K. Brown turns in a good performance playing the film’s antihero, playing a delicate balance of charisma and danger. It’s amazing to see how fast he can transform from humor to a quiet menace demeanor.
Sadly, most of the other characters are just plain uninteresting and/or cliche that allows you to figure out how they’ll play out long before it happens. Among all of the characters, none irritated me more than Morgan, the injured cop, played by Jenny Slate. Her character is completely unnecessary. She’s a bridge between The Nurse and The Wolf King, but it’s done in a clunky style. She is merely as a lazy trope to extract context from The Nurse and her past which ultimately hurts Foster’s character. She tells us nothing that couldn’t be read from Foster’s silence. Bautista turns in good supporting work at the muscle of the Artemis while Boutella breezes through her lines fine but doesn’t really make an impression until her scenes with Brown’s Sherman. Even Jeff Goldblum can’t muster up anything noteworthy with his brief apperance.
As it is, Hotel Artemis ends with more of a whimper than a bang, completing character arcs that leave a lot to be desired and leaving audiences ultimately looking for an early check out.
Rating: 5/10
