Four Rooms is a 1995 anthology film telling four stories set in a Los Angeles hotel on New Year's Eve. Tim Roth stars as the principal character of the frame tale; he also takes part to a greater or lesser degree in the four stories, which feature Bruce Willis, Quentin Tarantino, Antonio Banderas and Madonna, among others.
The movie was directed by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino with each of them directing one segment of the film. Original music by Combustible Edison.
Plot
Honeymoon Suite - The Missing Ingredient
The segment introduces the lead character, Ted the bellhop, who is working alone in a hotel on New Year's Eve. As the tale begins, Ted assists a number of unusual women transport their bags up to the honeymoon suite. In the course of doing so, he learns that they are a coven of witches, brewing a potion to reverse a spell placed on their goddess 40 years ago. In order to create the potion, each witch must place an ingredient into a large cauldron during a ritual. However, one of the witches has failed to obtain her ingredient, which is revealed to be semen. Fortunately, the witch, Eva, knows exactly where to obtain such a reagent, and so is given the job of seducing Ted in order to allow their plans to succeed. She manages to get Ted to have sex with her in the cauldron where the witches mixed their ingredients. After he leaves, the witches complete the spell and the goddess emerges from the cauldron.
Room 404 - The Wrong Man
Ted is contacted for room service, but due to a mix-up on the part of a drunken guest, is given the wrong room number, room 404. Upon arriving at the indicated room, he finds himself in the middle of fantasy hostage situation between a husband and wife (played by Jennifer Beals, the real-life wife of director Rockwell at the time). The husband, either as part of the drama or in reality, angrily believes that Ted (or "Teddy" as he refers to him) is having an affair with the wife, Angela. At gun point, Ted is forced to participate in the scenario, with no knowledge of what is real and what is part of the fantasy. Eventually, Ted escapes, but as he does so, another man enters the room under similar pretenses, and the whole situation apparently begins to repeat. This suggests either that the newcomer was supposed to be involved in the first place, or that the entire drama is somehow cyclic in nature.
Room 309 - The Misbehavers
A husband and wife (Antonio Banderas and Tamlyn Tomita) plan to go out to a New Year's Eve party with their two children before they decide they would have more 'fun' leaving the children in the hotel. Ted is paid $500 to keep an eye on the children by the father, who gives them the stern warning not to misbehave. As Ted is responsible for the entire hotel, he is unable to actually stay in the room with the children, but instead instructs the children to amuse themselves by watching television. After Ted leaves, the siblings quickly begin to squabble and proceed to both explore and vandalize the room, exploding a bottle of champagne in the process. The children call Ted on the phone to ask to turn off the adult television channel and for toothbrushes, at which point he delivers them stale crackers and milk and attempts unsuccessfully to put them to bed. After being summoned back to the room once more, Ted stumbles into a scene of mass chaos, and finds the source of the terrible odor in the room, a dead prostitute stuffed under the mattress. While Ted tries to quell the chaos in the room, the children's parents reenter the room and ask "Did they misbehave?"
Penthouse - The Man from Hollywood
Near the end of the night, Ted is called to the penthouse, which is currently being occupied by the famous director Chester Rush (played by Quentin Tarantino) and his friends. Ted is asked to deliver 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". After getting acquainted with Chester and his friends, Ted is asked to take part in a challenge: Chester's friend bet him that he can light his Zippo cigarette lighter ten times in a row (without fail). If he succeeds, he wins Chester's Chevrolet Chevelle, but if he fails, he loses his pinky finger. Ted is offered to perform as an impartial "hatchet man" and cut off Chester's friend's finger, should he fail. The twisted game is inspired by a 1960 Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, "Man from the South," based on the story of the same name by Roald Dahl (the episode is incorrectly referred to as "The Man From Rio" in this segment). After he hears this request Ted initially tries to storm out of the room, but a $100 bill convinces him to stay and listen for one more minute. A brilliant sales pitch by Chester and another $1000 finally persuade Ted to take the "hatchet man" role. In the end, Chester's friend fails on the first try, and the movie ends with the credits rolling as we see the frantic rush of Chester and company running to get the friend to a Hospital as Ted calmly walks out of the room with his money.
Linking
There is little linkage between the stories, and their relative chronology is unclear. However, "The Misbehavers" and "The Wrong Man" take place at least partially simultaneously. The latter scene is interrupted by an apparently odd phone call in which someone rings up requesting needles, infuriating the man with the gun. Later, the other half of this conversation is revealed: it is the little girl in "The Misbehavers" who found a syringe in a drawer, and rang a random number to find out if anyone else had a needle in their room.
However, the coven of witches from the first story is briefly spotted in a story, and the woman from "The wrong man" appears as a guest in Chester's room, in the fourth story.
Cast
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to Four Rooms features a score composed and performed by contemporary lounge music band Combustible Edison, co-produced by Mark Mothersbaugh. Additional music is by Juan García Esquivel.
Track listing
- "Vertigogo (Opening Theme)" (Combustible Edison) – 2:35
- "Junglero" – 1:54
- "Four Rooms Swing" – 2:11
- "Theme From 'Bewitched'" (Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller) – 1:01
- "Tea and Eva In The Elevator" – 0:55
- "Invocation" – 1:26
- "Breakfast At Denny's" – 3:57
- "Strange Brew" – 0:27
- "Coven Of Witches" – 0:59
- "The Earthly Diana" – 0:36
- "Eva Seduces Ted" – 2:10
- Tracks 2-11 from The Missing Ingredient
- "Hallway Ted" – 0:31
- "Headshake Rhumba" – 0:41
- "Skippen, Pukin, Sigfried" – 0:29
- "Angela" – 0:46
- "Punch Drunk" – 2:57
- "Male Bonding" – 3:06
- Tracks 12-17 from The Wrong Man
- "Mariachi" – 0:29
- "Antes De Medianoche" – 2:45
- "Sentimental Journey" (Written by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer, performed by Esquivel) – 2:39
- "Kids Watch TV" – 2:03
- "Champagne and Needles" – 2:06
- "Bullseye" – 1:01
- "Harlem Nocturne" (Written by Earle Hagen, performed by Esquivel) – 2:30
- "The Millionaire's Holiday" – 2:13
- Tracks 18-25 from The Misbehavers
- "Ted-o-vater" – 0:39
- "Vertigogo (Closing Credits)" – 5:33
- "'D' In The Hallway Credits" – 0:25
- "Torchy" – 0:16
- Tracks 26-29 from The Man from Hollywood[1][2]
Trivia
- When the movie poster was shot, Madonna decided to cut her hair and color it red (in the movie it was platinum blonde), because she didn't take the movie or her role seriously and because she hated how she looked in her scenes. She refused to do any promotion for "Four Rooms", even though it was in her contract when she signed on.
- In "The Misbehavers", the woman dancing on the TV is Salma Hayek.
- The role of Ted was written with Steve Buscemi in mind.
- While the children are watching television in The Misbehavers, the first image seen on the television is a scene from Robert Rodriguez's short film Bedhead.
- At the beginning, when the A Band Apart logo appears (which contains four of the characters from the film Reservoir Dogs), the Mr. Orange character transforms into Ted; both characters were played by Tim Roth. The rest of the credits are a homage to The Pink Panther.
- Neither Bruce Willis nor his character are ever mentioned in the credits of this movie, because Bruce Willis did not get any kind of salary for the movie, which was against the rules of the Screen Actors Guild. His hair stylist, however, is mentioned.
- The "real" Teddy that Ted finally encounters at the end of "The Wrong Man" is Paul Skemp, who was chosen for his passing resemblance to Tim Roth.
- Kathy Griffin makes a brief appearance as the Bellboy's supervisor.
- Director Richard Linklater was supposed to contribute a fifth segment to the film, but left the film in the pre-production stages.
References
External links
|
