Four Rooms

Date Released: December 25, 1995
Director:  Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Tim Roth, Madonna, David Proval, Antonio Banderas, Quentin Tarantino, Marisa Tomei
Genre: Comedy
Rating: 6.4/10 (IMDB.com)

     I had this movie in my Netflix queue for awhile and finally came around to receiving it.  I'm a huge Tarantino fan and this was the one thing he had done that I hadn't seen.  Not too many people know about this film, and now I know why!

     The movie has four different stories pieced together that are directed by four different directors; "The Missing Ingredient" (Anders), "The Wrong Man" (Rockwell), "The Misbehavers" (Rodriguez), and "The Man from Hollywood" (Tarantino).  The stories take place at an old hotel on New Year’s Eve where a goofy Tim Roth plays a bellboy who encounters a group of witches, a crazed gunman and his tied up wife, a suave Latino man, his wife, and his unruly children, and a Hollywood director with an entourage of characters.

     The movie is a waste of time.  It’s just not funny, except for maybe a few chuckles which can be found in Rodriguez’s and Tarantino’s stories.  Bruce Willis’s un-credited cameo part made me a laugh for a second, but then I was unfortunately brought back to reality. To make a long review short, this film simply misses the mark.  Tarantino was probably riding high at the time just coming off the successes of “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” and decided to throw his director buddies a bone and attach his name to this project.  Tim Roth, who is usually a great actor, was just silly and annoying in this movie. He was silly I tell you, SILLY! (The Jerky Boys)  Madonna is in it, which is pretty much a given that the movie is going to bomb.  OK, “A League of Their Own” didn’t bomb, but that's all I'll give her credit for.  What’s odd to me is that Marisa Tomei plays a stoner in this film, but on the movie poster looks glamorous, as if she played a completely different character.  Miramax probably said something similar to this in a meeting; “Guys, this movie looks pretty bad, let’s maximize profits by putting a sexy Tomei on the cover and just ignore the fact that she doesn’t look anything like that in the movie.”  That seems accurate.  My advice, skip this one.

My Rating: 5.2/10

Available: DVD 

Posted by Matt