Unpleasant Million Dollar Hotel

NIGHT AT THE GOLDEN EAGLE (2001)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If you wanted to see a film set in skid row then "Night at the Golden Eagle" is the film for you. Seeped and drenched in solarized, sepia colors, "Night at the Golden Eagle" is an attempt to see the seamier side of life. I don't object to such films unless there is no core of humanity or degree of human sensibility. The Golden Eagle hotel is not a place I'd spend a night in.

The film is set in an L.A. fleabag hotel, the kind where those with lost dreams reside (think "Million Dollar Hotel"). One of the dreamers is Mic (Vinny Argiro), a former crook who wants to live the good life in Vegas. He's reunited with another former crook, Tommy (Donnie Montemarano), who's just gotten out of jail and his first thought is to steal a car. The hotel they stay in is festering with all forms of lowlifes and dreamers to be sure. There is a sneering pimp (Vinnie Jones from "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"), two hookers (Ann Magnuson and Natasha Lyonne), a former tap-dancing legend, Fayard Nicholas, another lost soul who spends an eternity watching TV in the lobby, and I am afraid to say, not much more.

"Night at the Golden Eagle" doesn't aim to dwell into these hotel guests because the characters are nothing more than types, not real people. I like some of the camaraderie and growing friction between Mic and Tommy and their aspirations to live the good life in Sin City, but they never grow beyond the one-dimensional stage.When a murder takes place that involves one of these crooks, their growing banter quickly becomes tedious because we barely care about them (and one of them could care less about the murder). The prostitutes, including a pubescent girl, are reduced to fodder for those who think prostitutes are not real people. In fact, writer-director Adam Rifkin doesn't invest much emotion into anyone - they are all stereotypes who have as much purpose as several chia pets on a window sill. Either Rifkin is afraid to explore the nature of his subjects or he'd rather just shock the audience - the latter is common amongst young filmmakers today in light of the ironic edge every noir film seems to possess.

I do not resent a film that intends to present a time and place and nothing more. But even in plotless films such as, for lack of a better example, Godard's "Breathless" or Fellini's "8 1/2" or Scorsese's "Mean Streets," the people populating those films inspired some curiosity, some level of interest. In "Night of the Golden Eagle, the characters of the mean streets of L.A. would be better off occupying a video game, not a movie. "Grand Theft Auto," anyone?