by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the wide release of Wim Wenders’s The Million Dollar Hotel, almost a full year since it debuted at the previous year’s Berlin International Film Festival. The film took home a Silver Bear there, but dramatically failed to connect with an audience of any kind, getting very few favorable critical reviews and making less than $60,000 on an $8 million budget. While Wenders is well known within cinephile circles, this was actually my first experience with his filmography (I will get to Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas someday, I swear). 

No, The Million Dollar Hotel crossed my path because of my low key obsession with one of the last rock bands to overtake the monoculture: U2. Bono, the band’s frontman, has a story and producer credit on The Million Dollar Hotel. It seems that Bono conceived of the story during the filming of the “Where the Streets Have No Name” music video back in 1987. The video shows the band playing a Beatles-esque rooftop concert, and the film is set (and was filmed) in the hotel. At the time of release, In between the film’s Berlin debut and the theatrical release, U2 released All That You Can’t Leave Behind, which reaffirmed their status as a rock band that could grab the public’s attention, spawning hit songs and a few Grammy awards in the process. 

U2, and Bono in particular, have been criticized for being both vapid and pretentious. As a fan, I find that mix charming, in part, because I think Bono is an especially earnest figure whether he is in character as The Fly or meeting George W. Bush. Perfect he is not, but I don’t think there is much about Bono that isn’t genuine. The man indulges in many affectations, but they don’t seem to serve any particular purpose. Bono has never really been cool. 

While some bands do their best just to make great music, U2 made tours into traveling visual spectacles, and embraced philosopher-poet mindsets with minimal self-editing. While the height of the band’s hubris might still be Rattle and Hum, it seems every few years the band is trying something new and different, resulting in a perceived colossal misstep (the free album they pushed on Apple users). So it might be for the best that The Million Dollar Hotel remains a footnote in their career. But how did it come about?

Reading up on the band’s connection to Wim Wenders, they have been collaborators since 1990, when Wenders shot their music video for “Night + Day” in his Berlin apartment for the Cole Porter themed Red Hot + Blue AIDS benefit album. Wenders also directed the music video for the band’s “Stay (Faraway, So Close),” and the song appeared in Faraway, So Close!, Wenders’ sequel to Wings of Desire. So, while the collaboration between these two creative partners may seem like it comes out of nowhere, The Million Dollar Hotel actually makes sense. Bono and Wenders are concerned with similar ideas, and both are notably European Christians. Their similar views on God, angels, and the power of grace surely inform the story of the film, as does their view of Americans as outsiders.  

The third voice in the trifecta that brought The Million Dollar Hotel to cinemas (albeit very briefly) is another non-American Christian: Mel Gibson. Not only did his company, Icon Productions, help finance the movie, but Gibson took on the starring role. A few years before his anti-Semetic rants, Gibson committed a lower-level faux pass by calling the film “as boring as a dog’s ass” ahead of its Australian opening. And so these three luminaries of the 80s and 90s took up residence at The Million Dollar Hotel, trying to film while the streets of LA echoed with sirens and rats crawled through the walls of the building. Troubled may be an understatement, but I doubt better conditions would have resulted in a much different film. 

Set in the titular hotel, the film takes the form of a mystery, with FBI Detective Skinner (Mel Gibson) trying to determine if the death of a media mogul’s son (Tim Roth) was a suicide or murder). The mogul, Stanley Goldkiss (Harris Yulin) seems to be concerned with how the death will impact his entertainment business. As Skinner tries to solve the case, he has to spend time among the denizens of the hotel. Here’s where things get wild. Notable residents include Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies), who also narrates the film and describes himself as “a little slow,” Eloise (Milla Jovovich), the object of his affection, Geronimo (Jimmy Smits), a Native American hippie artist, and Dixie (Peter Stormare), who claims to have been one of the original Beatles. As the film goes on, the romance becomes the A-plot, while the investigation becomes a vehicle for the hotel’s denizens to push back against. 

Much of the dialogue, presumably from Nicholas Klein’s screenplay, takes the form of empty sentimental platitudes better suited to college sophomores and fortune cookies. The characters are of a single note, problematic, or both. Gibson spends the entire film wearing a back brace that immobilizes his neck and is adorned with a flattop haircut, stumbling around the hotel like a Frankenstein with a badge. It’s embarrassing to begin with, but combined with, say, Stormare’s Liverpudlian accent, Lennon glasses, and Beatles puns, or Jimmy Smits’ casting as a man of a different race, it’s clear that the non-Americans behind this film think very little of us, or at least betray their understanding of our history as surface level only. If this movie had a tone, it would be deaf. 

It would be easy to dismiss the whole enterprise as a misguided indulgence, managing to capture as many sins of the time period when it comes to depicting mental health, drug addiction, and other subjects. The film has a weird vibe, overall and its themes of unconditional love and prioritizing love don’t quite overcome the portrayals of the characters’ issues, even if it is meant to be parable. But it feels more out of touch than it does outright malicious. The film’s eye is certainly a romantic one, but maybe it would make more sense if a few of the characters were angels. 

But maybe I’ll check in again...someday. Gibson and Jovovich actually salvage watchable performances out of the film, and Smits gets to yell “God is white!” at the heavens. Almost. It’s certainly not as bad as its overall reputation would suggest. It is a curio in the careers of these three iconic figures. The Million Dollar Hotel also ends with a U2 song that uses Salman Rushdie verses for lyrics. Wenders directed the video, which uses shots from the film: