Hotel Artemis

High level underground healthcare, malfeasant exclusivity monopolizing bedside manners, a doctor whose son was lost surgically suturing round the clock, strict codes of conduct sustaining improbable decorum with the efficient composure of inoculated propriety, an indispensable service for those who require it, an oasis, a criminal miracle, aliases supplied sanctuary granted, personality condoned within but who's to say what'll happen on the outside, a father and son at odds, expertly timed assassignations, steadfast fraternal devotion, prescribed in/discriminate patience, getaways, gumption, gallantry and gunshot wounds, grotesquely favoured, securely synchronized, playfully humoured, abruptly inundated.

Riots raging in Los Angeles, the result of soulless ambitions to privatize water realized, ubiquitous disorder generating pandemonium, within which even the outlawed superelite feel helpless with nowhere to hide.

Forgotten past misdeeds ravenously salivating.

The drool an elixir.

The drip a commandant.

Escape through delirium manifested in the labyrinthine.

Plain sight stealth.

Unorthodox risk management.

Hotel Artemis has the makings of a cult classic perhaps dependent upon the preferences of a younger generation.

I enjoyed the film and the ways in which it openly orchestrates alternative subterranean postures, its imaginative non-compliance circumnavigating electroshocks, boisterously treading the turbulent mainstream, exuberantly bolting nutty necromance.

But I couldn't help wondering if I would have loved it thirty years ago, or if alternative alternative formats have unconsciously redefined the underground, with the same subtle corporate polish that led to so many unremarkable Johnny Depp films.

Have I simply grown older, or have statistical calculations transformed wild narratives into more family friendly pieces of civil disobedience, a sign of a more hesitant restrained contemporary artistic approach, saturated with widespread perennial job insecurity?

Perhaps the form of the underground films that hit theatres in the 80's have become the contents of similar early twenty-first century films, the form of the latter now representing the content of the former, to reflect how political engagements have changed due to a lack of progressive organization, dating from the unfortunate release of Mortdecai?

That makes more sense.

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