New Rose Hotel (1998): B

Christopher Walken’s idiosyncratic mannerisms and strangely articulated turns of phrase are in full bloom throughout Abel Ferrara’s New Rose Hotel, though the uneven film’s real center of gravity is Asia Argento, whose sensual presence haunts this William Gibson-based tale of futuristic corporate espionage and romantic delusion. One of the most fully realized female characters in Ferrara’s oeuvre (along with Zoë Lund’s avenging Ms. 45 and Drea de Matteo’s ‘R Xmas mommy), Argento’s prostitute Sandii is the sultry vehicle via which wheeler-dealers Fox (Walken) and X (Willem Dafoe) plan to make millions, the voluptuous hooker functioning as the lure in their plan to steal a Japanese geneticist away from one conglomerate and deliver him to a rival outfit. With the trio’s imbalanced dynamic as electrified as a buzzing neon sign, Ferrara surprisingly – at least in light of his occasionally less-than-flattering portraits of womanhood – bestows Sandii with the preponderance of power, her initial functionary, passive role in Fox’s scheme reversed by her magnetic, sexually empowered domination of the foolhardy X. Ferrara’s editing has a ruminative rhythm that nicely clashes with Walken’s scene-stealing overacting (if not Dafoe’s somewhat lifeless supporting turn). But it’s the prolonged finale that truly defines the inconsistent New Rose Hotel, with X’s devastatingly revealing flashbacks proving to be masterfully constructed and yet eventually rather wearisome.