Lifetime
Lifetime’s newest ‘Sunday Night Thrills’ movie of the week is a mixed bag. It has a pretty good story but then it’s continually undone by nonsense.
Murder at the Hotel, which was produced under the much more clever title Terminally Delayed, opens with an Airport-style introduction to a group of passengers arriving at a Chicago airport in the middle of a snowstorm only to find their flight has been delayed … and eventually cancelled. The main characters are the Marris family: mom Megan, dad Jeff, and daughter Lisa. In a really impressive continuous shot as the camera glides through the concourse, we also get glimpses of an angry man on his phone, later identified as Evan, and a young man named Landon, who bumps into Lisa as she’s entering the rest rooms. Megan overhears Evan berating the airport employee at the gate, Jan, as if the weather is her fault and confronts him, instantly making an enemy (we don’t know who he’s talking to on the phone but he is adamant that something has to get done that night) of him and a friend of Jan’s. Megan then bumps into her college ex, Brad, which is a bit awkward especially when Jeff approaches and realizes who the guy is. But he gives them some space to catch up and he begins chatting with a beautiful blonde, Nicole. With all the characters established, the flight it officially cancelled and the airline books everyone at a nearby hotel where real the fun begins.
While heading to their rooms, the Marris’ also learn that Brad is on the same floor and Jeff just blurts out an invite to join them for dinner in twenty minutes. Megan is not thrilled but what can she do? The dinner becomes increasingly awkward as it becomes clear that Brad still has feeling for Meg (which she keeps asking him not to call her) and before dessert arrives Jeff excuses himself to grab a drink at the bar. Lisa is also icked out and leaves as well. The conversation with Brad makes Megan increasingly uncomfortable, and she notices that her husband and the blonde has left the bar so it’s time to excuse herself as well. Lisa had bumped into Landon again in the hallway and he invited her to join him in the hot tub — even though it was closed but he knew how to sneak in — and she agreed, so when Megan gets back to the rooms, she can’t find either Jeff or Lisa. She does bump into Nicole at the ice machine, but she claims not to know where Jeff is. Meanwhile, the hotel security guard notices a camera in the pool area is out and goes to investigate, only to be attacked by a figure in a hoodie from behind, tasered right into the pool where the electrical energy still in his body electrocute him when he hits the water. Later in the hot tub, Landon begins to unload his personal trauma on Lisa, and she moves closer to him to give him a kiss but he pulls away and she is humiliated. He leaves her alone, but she hears a noise and quickly exits the room.
By this point, Megan is frantically searching the hotel, running into Jan and the hotel manager sucking face in a stairwell (he’s her boyfriend but they’re trying to keep it on the downlow), as well as Brad whom she thinks has been following her (he has, but allegedly just to make sure she’s okay). When Megan gets back to the lobby, the angry man from the airport, Evan, now recognizes Megan as a DA and he seems to have a real beef with her as his henchmen suddenly crawl out of the woodwork. Manager Rick springs into action and asks Megan to come with him and wait in the office because Evan seems to be placing her under citizen’s arrest, but she ain’t having it. Unfortunately, she discovers the dead body of the guard and then the dead body of Brad (who was a red herring all this time), while she is trying to hide from Evan and his angry mob, at one point sliding down a laundry chute after he locks her in a supply room. She still does not know where her family is, but we do — they are tied to chairs and gagged in someone’s hotel room. But whose? Will Megan be able to avoid Evan and friends and finally discover where her family is before it’s too late?
Lifetime
Murder at the Hotel starts out pretty great with that long single take shot. A lot of choreography had to go into that, including the use of an elevator, so kudos to Director Alexandre Carrière and Cinematographer Andrew Best for pulling it off. That is such a technical thing with having to have the actors in the right places at the right moment and then lighting the scene consistently as well as keeping everything in focus, so it was a very impressive way to open the film. The script by Chris Siverston does a good job of briefly introducing the characters, setting them up for a little more development at the hotel, but not everyone gets to be fully fleshed out, like Evan. We know he’s angry about the delay, he says he has an important meeting in San Francisco the next morning, but it’s never clear what his meeting is about and why he is suddenly after Megan (or where his extra henchmen came from). Nicole doesn’t get much character development either until near the end of the movie. The way Megan is written also makes her a bit all over the place. She seems like a strong, confident woman who loves her husband — and he loves her although he does feel like he’s a bit in her shadow — but she goes a little unhinged when he disappears from the bar, immediately assuming he’s with Nicole when he isn’t in the room. Does she have that little faith in her marriage that she thinks Jeff would try to sneak off with another woman right under his wife’s nose? There’s also just the concept of Megan running around the hotel, down empty hallways and up and down stairways accomplishing nothing, and then adding the pursuit from Evan and company is just another layer that doesn’t add much to the story. At least the Jan character does step up to help by allowing Megan to look at the passenger manifest (would she really be carrying that around with her?), forging a bond between the two women. The shocking death of Brad is a welcome twist because he is set up as the culprit from the beginning, but when Megan does eventually figure out where Jeff and Lisa are, it just seems to come out of nowhere.
Samora Smallwood does a good job as Megan despite how the character is written, determined to find her family. She projects a power that comes with her position as a DA and she does not back down from Evan. Just all the running up and down stairways become a bit redundant and feels more like filler to stretch out the runtime, but Smallwood at least keeps the viewer engaged with Megan’s plight. Matt Wells does a nice job as Jeff, even though he is written to be supportive of Megan he comes off more as a doormat, and Wells projects that feeling very well. Yasmin MacKay perfectly nails the perpetually angry teen who feels trapped by her parents, and she also really makes you feel Lisa’s humiliation when Landon rejects her advances.
Speaking of Landon, Jonathan Valvano kind of gives off a stoner vibe but always feels a bit creepy as well, and you’d think Lisa would be smart enough to sense his vibe as well. Shanna Armogan does a nice job as Jan, although in her performance she often comes across as shady, so you aren’t really sure if she has any involvement in Jeff and Lisa’s disappearance. The same goes for Pat Dempsey as hotel manager Rick, especially when he tries to detain Megan. Justin Nurse is very good as Brad, subtly projecting that he may not have the best intentions, especially when he begins to try to apologize to Megan for the past and tell her he still loves her. So did he know she was going to be on that flight or was it just happenstance? That’s never fully explained, but Nurse does a great job at making the viewer feel that he is the one who has Jeff and Lisa, and is stalking Megan through the hotel … until he isn’t. Probably the best twist in the movie. Lauren Vandenbrook is fine as Nicole, playing the subtle seductress, but she disappears for a large part of the movie so we don’t really get to know much about her until the end. Peter Michael Dillon is also good as the continually angry Evan, but that seems to be the only character motivation he was given. He does it well though.
Overall, Murder at the Hotel is a decent mystery-thriller with some good performances but a story that is full of highs and lows, with one great twist. Even with some of the more eye-rolling and head-scratching moments, it’s still entertaining enough to keep you on the edge of your seat now and then.
Murder at the Hotel has a run time of 1 hour 28 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
I wanted to know what happened to Evan’s sister – what caused her death?
Overdose/suicide I think