Abel Ferrara's New Rose Hotel

* * 1/2 (out of 4)

The plot is either so Byzantine or opaque that I felt someone was having me on. Is this an elaborate prank from Abel Ferrara, the man who brought us the human condition in gregarious excess of filth and bile in Bad Lieutenant?

His latest film to be released on video, New Rose Hotel, is impenetrable but assured. It'll no doubt prove frustrating and annoying for most viewers, who will assuredly want to take the tape out of the VCR and smash it with a hammer. It's a story told through multiple layers of flashbacks as our hero, a William Gibson techno-spy with no name (Willem Dafoe) attempts to decipher precisely what happened in a cyberdeal gone wrong.

We're introduced to a futuristic city a few years from now. From what can be deciphered from the vague dialogue and terse situations taking place in Kubrickian office space, high ceilings hotel lobbies with revolving glass doors and glossy bars with overbearing red lights and nude girls on-stage, two spies are in the employ of a genetic research company to snatch a formula from a brilliant Japanese scientist.

Our spies are played by Willem Dafoe, who looks great in his shiny black leather jackets and long bangs, and the incomparable Christopher Walken. The Dafoe character isn't very bright, perhaps the muscle of the operation. Walken is the brains, for lack of a better word. He's lively, a song-and-dance man with a cane who walks around in white suits acting like, well, Christopher Walken on a good day. A very good day.

From the beginning, we see them discuss the "plan" in those mysterious bars and hotel rooms. It doesn't even really matter what they're discussing, since we can figure out it's important and involves espionage. This "discussion" footage is intercut with grainy spy camera video footage of the scientist and his wife going through their routine - walking down the street, socializing with men in black and beautiful women in scant clothing.

The use of repetition in this film is something astounding. We're constantly being jostled from one sterile location to a flashy and sexy pit of sin to shaky camera footage of businessmen in the distance involved in some obscure transaction. I couldn't follow what was going on for the life of me, but soon became intoxicated in the rhythm of the film, the seeming all-importance of their mysterious business. Perhaps the fact that I didn't get it but the characters seemed to piqued my curiosity and kept me watching.

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