Main cast: Jeremy Davies (Tom Tom), Milla Jovovich (Eloise), Mel Gibson (Detective Skinner), Jimmy Smits (Geronimo), Peter Stormare (Dixie), Amanda Plummer (Vivien), Gloria Stuart (Jessica), Tom Bower (Hector), Donal Logue (Charley Best), Bud Cort (Shorty), Julian Sands (Terence Scopey), Conrad Roberts (Stix), and Harris Yulin (Stanley Goldkiss)
Director: Wim Wenders

It is so clear from the first grating monologue from imbecile bum Tom that this movie aspires to be the epitome of cool. To be cool, it populates itself with crazy characters who think that they are the ultimate in irony. It’s just too bad that this movie forgets the one important ingredient that can make or break a movie – watchability. The Million Dollar Hotel, U2’s frontman Bono’s pet project, is a narcissistic, dull yarn that is also singularly repulsive in its self-conscious attempts to be Tarantino-esque.

It tells of Detective Skinner investigating the death of a fellow in a hotel, thus uncovering secrets of its population of weirdos and dangerous people. Heck, Skinner’s even a freak, or so this movie tells me. He has a third arm growing from his back.

Thing is, I hate every single thing about this movie. Tom just grates with his pretentious monologues. His unrequited love, Eloise is a prostitute who reads. Ooh, is that supposed to be “irony” or “contradiction”? And to be even cooler, we have people trying to outdo each other in supposedly witty one-liners. Lines like “I fell in love with her even though I hadn’t set eyes on her before” sound as if they were written by bad poets high on illegal substances however.

Noir isn’t just dark sets and people trying to pretend they are literate freaks. The Million Dollar Hotel is so pretentious, grandiose, and self-conscious of its own aspiring cult, arty-farty greatness that watching the movie is like listening to someone bragging nonstop about his ability to stuff three fingers up his nostrils. Boring and painfully tedious.