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Million Dollar Hotel
Release Date: 28th April 2000
Distributor: Lions Gate Films Inc
Certificate: 15
Starring: Jeremy Davies, Milla Jovovich, Mel Gibson, Jimmy Smits, Peter Stormare, Amanda Plummer, Bud Cort
Director: Wim Wenders
Running Time: 122 mins
Set some 30 years from now in a seedy area of Hollywood, one of the residents of a shoddy, dilapidated hotel plummets to his death from the roof and FBI Agent Skinner (Mel Gibson) is called in to question the other residents. Unfortunately for him, it looks as if most of the permanent inhabitants of this domicile have been off-loaded by every mental asylum and halfway house in L.A which doesn't make for an easy investigation, as most of them are either deranged or incoherent.
Two characters there do seem to know more than they are letting on though. Skateboarder and fulltime simpleton Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies) and shy book-worm Eloise (Milla Jovovich) seem to share a common inside knowledge of what has been going on in the hotel but Skinner seems to be fraught at every turn in his attempts at unravelling the mystery.

What makes the situation and storyline even more bizarre is the presentation of Agent Skinner himself and we are left in no doubt that he is neither an Agent Starling nor an Agent Mulder. This is a very strange man indeed who sports a chromium neck brace and walks to all intents and purposes like an android, which sometimes has us wondering whether or not he is some sort of robot and, as we get to grips with his very dubious moral code, whether he too belongs in this "nuthouse".
Gibson puts in his best performance in a long while, something darker and more reminiscent of his role in "Payback" and with an edge that is as unnerving as it is fascinating and Jovovich ("The Fifth Element", "The Messenger: Joan Of Arc") definately has that certain je n'est sais quoi that keeps you riveted to her every word and movement.

The whole feeling of the movie is one of ambiguity, which sometimes leads to feelings of frustration and an underlying irritation as periodically it seems as though director Wim Wenders has maybe put just a little too much effort and time into making this hotel such a weird place and not enough effort into making the plot run more fluidly than it does.
But it is entertainingly different enough compared to a lot of what is on show at the moment, which in itself counts for something in this age of remakes, copycats and vacuous conveyor belt rip-offs.