Pretty vacant

>> The Million Dollar Hotel is a star-studded bust

by MATTHEW HAYS

This is truly a bitter pill to swallow for fans of Wim Wenders. His latest, The Million Dollar Hotel, is a messed-up, confused, identity crisis of a movie, a film in search of a concept and style that goes nowhere. It's particularly depressing when one considers the talent behind the film, including everyone from co-producer Bono to director Wim Wenders.

The film's plot unfolds in the Million Dollar Hotel, a run-down Los Angeles rooming house whose inhabitants are clearly meant to push the limits of the surreal. Jeremy Davies plays Tom Tom, an innocent little wacko who falls tragically in love with an equally screwy street urchin (Milla Jovovich). A mystery launches the film: Izzy (Tim Roth), a junkie who resides in the residence, dies a horrid death and, as screenwriting luck should have it, his father turns out to be a billionaire. Thus Izzy's death becomes a focus of the media and the remaining residents of the hotel become suspects in his murder.

Enter Mel Gibson, who plays a straight-laced but acutely disturbed FBI agent whose assignment is to solve the suddenly high-profile demise of Izzy. Gibson had a third arm that sprouted from his back, but had it removed years ago, leaving him both emotionally and physically scarred.

Well, it sounds intriguing enough, especially since Wenders did such a rich, unique and disturbing take on the American landscape with Paris, Texas, the film many consider his best. But here it all falls flat, all quirks, bells and whistles with no depth, meaning or punch.

A severe disappointment is Gibson himself, brilliantly cast as the authoritarian lunatic who invades the lives of the nutty-but-harmless hotel types. Unfortunately, Gibson lumbers his way through the script, looking as lost as virtually everyone else in the film.

Which is no small task considering the Hollywood Squares-like roundup of indie fave actors. Bud Cort, Jimmy Smits, Gloria Stuart and Amanda Plummer (will this woman ever play sane again?) all appear in similarly stilted roles.

Thus The Million Dollar Hotel feels like a massive collective piece, an anthology of disparate performances and ideas that never finds itself. Those looking for a recent worthy Wenders venture should simply rent Buena Vista Social Club instead.

The Million Dollar Hotel opens Friday, March 2