Four Rooms Movie
If only they still made movies like Four Rooms.
Four directors, four writers, four equally appealing if not equally satisfying "short films" set around a central location. The Four Rooms movie is set in four different rooms at a hotel in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve, as well as the hallways and a few other locations necessary to the plot. While this film was a critical bomb (one critic called it "a goof . . . so laborious and aggressive that you almost feel pinned back in your seat") it has always been a hit with the audience that matters -- the fans. If you know a film buff, the odds are high that he or she owns a copy of the Four Rooms movie, and for good reason.
Four Rooms Film History
Fans love the Four Rooms film because it caters to what moviegoers want -- an interesting plot, a fast pace, celebrity cameos (like Bruce Willis' cameo in Tarantino's segment), and lots of laughs. The difference between the critics' reaction to the Four Rooms film and the reaction from the fans is vast enough to be worth mentioning. Look at the universal hatred critics had for this film (it was called "one of 1995's greatest disappointments" by one critic whose opinion wasn't far from his colleagues') compared to the overwhelmingly favorable reviews found at Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office Review -- what is it that critics found so upsetting about Four Rooms? Hard to say. Box office receipts were awesome, considering how few movie theaters ran the thing. Four Rooms earned just under $5 million domestically even though it only played in 319 cinemas. That's a return that today's filmmakers would be pleased with, even though critics would have rather you stay home.
Four Room's Success
One reason for the film's success among moviegoers could be the inclusion of Rodriguez and Tarantino. Rodriguez was an established filmmaker with a big following -- his movies Desperado and El Mariachi made him a known name among fans of quirky cinema, and fans everywhere were dying for more Quentin Tarantino after the cult smash Reservoir Dogs in 1992 and 1994's blockbuster Pulp Fiction. Remember that Pulp Fiction was one of the ten highest-grossing films of 1994, not a slow year in Hollywood. Tarantino himself was scrambling to start and finish other projects, including an early version of his war / Jewish revenge film Inglourious Basterds -- but the time required to make a feature film kept him from cashing in on his recent success. That's why a short piece like his contribution to Four Rooms (called The Man From Hollywood) was such a perfect fit. Quentin Tarantino was responsible for a quarter of the script, a quarter of the film, and could wrap his segment of the film without upsetting his own schedule.
Four Rooms Synopsis
Four "up and coming" director/writers were featured in Four Rooms, only two of which have really continued to produce good films. The other two -- Allison Anders and Alexandre Rockwell -- produced nothing of interest after Four Rooms, and neither really amounted to much in terms of an impact on American cinema, with the possible exception of Rockwell who now teaches directing at NYU's film school, molding future filmmakers and educating director wannabes at one epicenter of American film. The other two directors -- Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez -- are now a major part of American movies and are well-known collaborators, famously on Sin City and From Dusk Till Dawn among other projects.
Quentin Tarantino Four Rooms
Quentin Tarantino's role in Four Rooms was that of the "cleanup batter". His is the last short film shown, and it comes after Robert Rodriguez eye-opening bit, full of sight gags and Tim Roth's typical spastic goodness. Tarantino's segment of the film, which owes a major debt to Roald Dahl's story "Man From the South" which was also adapted by Alfred Hitchcock, is widely regarded as the strongest of the four, though Rodriguez' The Misbehavers is just as intriguing and maybe a bit more charming and therefore memorable. Where the first two segments of the film are a bit loose, open-ended and at times silly (the segment called The Missing Ingredient features Madonna in an awful cameo) the final two are powerful and engaging bits of cinema.
In Tarantino's The Man From Hollywood, Ted the bellhop (played by the always delightful Tim Roth) is called up to the Penthouse of the hotel with a very strange list of items -- a block of wood, a doughnut, a ball of twine, three nails, a club sandwich, a bucket of ice and a hatchet "as sharp as the devil himself". Roth's character, who is new on the job on this insane New Year's Eve, happily complies and is met with a scene so token Tarantino it could easily be a parody. Let's just say there's a particular bet made involving a Zippo lighter and the potential removal of a pinkie finger via the hatchet. The film is standard Tarantino -- tense, full of engaging dialogue, violent and dark, but ultimately funny. If you were to condense Tarantino's style into a bouillon cube, it would look something like The Man From Hollywood.
Memorable Moments
Four Rooms is memorable for more than Tarantino's segment. There are bright spots in all four short films, even the otherwise miserable The Missing Ingredient has laughs and intrigue, but the final two contributions by Tarantino and Rodriguez are what make this film "buy-worthy". A stellar cast (including Bruce Willis, Ione Skye, Salma Hayek, Kathy Griffin, Marisa Tomei, and Quentin Tarantino himself) is supported by really fun music provided by Combustible Edison, a contemporary lounge-throwback band. While an evening spent watching Four Rooms may be no more than light entertainment (nothing on the level of darkness found in Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, or Kill Bill ) it will not be an evening wasted. Come for Tarantino's short film, stay for the undeniable charm of this unique offering from the 90s.