Check in at Hotel Artemis for Jodie Foster
HOTEL ARTEMIS Direction: Drew Pearce Actors: Jodie Foster, Sterling K Brown Rating:
For those of you who’ve wondered from time to time whatever happened to Jodie Foster (I know I have), well, it has been a while, but she’s back.
The two-time Oscar winner who directed Money Monster in 2016 but hasn’t starred in a film since Elysium (2013), plays a frazzled medic known only as Nurse, at a ‘residency’ that doubles as an underground hospital for wounded criminals.
Hotel Artemis is set in a riot-ripped Los Angeles, circa 2028. The action is confined to a single night and occurs mainly at the titular location.
After a heist goes horribly wrong, a pair of bank-robbing brothers (Sterling K Brown-Brian Tyree Henry) checks in at the membersonly facility.
They are soon joined by a number of other lowlifes, including an arms dealer (Charlie Day) and a French femme fatale (Sofia Boutella).
Events spiral out of control with the arrival of the grievously injured don (Jeff Goldblum) who also owns the facility.
Making his feature debut, British writer-director Drew Pearce stages the climactic confrontation quite energetically.
Ultimately however it is Jodie Foster’s assured performance that elevates the derivate material above the commonplace.