Plot

Four interlocking tales that take place in a fading hotel on New Year's Eve.

This movie features the collaborative directorial efforts of four new filmmakers, each of whom directs a segment of this comedy. It's New Year's Eve at the Mon Signor Hotel, a former grand old Hollywood hotel, now fallen upon hard times. Often using physical comedy and sight gags, this movie chronicles the slapstick misadventures of Ted, the Bellhop. He's on his first night on the job, when he's asked to help out a coven of witches in the Honeymoon Suite. Things only get worse when he delivers ice to the wrong room and ends up in a domestic argument at a really bad time. Next, he foolishly agrees to watch a gangster's kids for him while he's away. Finally, he finishes off the night refereeing a ghastly wager.—Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>

The film begins with Ted the Bellhop (Tim Roth) in a room filled with hotel memorabilia, talking to Sam the Bellhop (Marc Lawrence) about what a bellhop is. It's New Year's Eve.

"The Missing Ingredient" begins with a bunch of women (including Madonna and Lili Taylor) converging in the Honeymoon Suite, where there's a huge cauldron in the room's center. The women send Ted to get a bunch of ingredients, mostly from the kitchen. With the ingredients in hand, the women, some of them topless, enact a ritual. They are witches. One says they intend to reverse the spell that turned their goddess Diana into stone in this very room 40 years ago.

The witches dance around, then they begin putting ingredients into the huge cauldron. Eva (Ione Skye) was required to get the key ingredient: fresh semen. Alas, instead of keeping the sample, she swallows it. Ted returns to the room. A witch gives him a $50 tip, telling him that he has to make Eva smile. The witches leave Ted alone with Eva, whom Ted tries to entertain by acting silly. Eva says it doesn't matter if she smiles or not, and explains that she and her friends are a coven, as well as the situation with Diana. After Ted resists Eva's advances, she casts a spell on him, causing him to be swept away with her. Ted kisses Eva.

Later, we see them kissing some more. Ted leaves the suite as the witches plus one more return. Eva says she's a woman now, telling them that she and Ted did it in the cauldron. The witches continue the ritual. Diana rises from the cauldron in physical form.

The second segment is "The Wrong Man." Ted walks into a darkened room 404. The light comes on. A man (David Proval) points a gun in Ted's face. A woman (Jennifer Beals) is tied to a chair and gagged behind the man. The man swallows some pills. He accuses Ted of being the woman's beau. She is the man's wife. Ted says there's a mistake. The man hits Ted in the face with the gun, knocking him down. The man pulls Ted up and says he demands an apology. He puts the gun down and has Ted mouth an apology for saying he f---ed another man. The man tells Ted not to move a nose hair, picking up the gun. The man dances over to the bathroom. The woman mumbles at Ted and he pulls the gag from her mouth. She tells him to untie her. He argues that they're complete strangers, and she says, "it's where we end up that counts." They realize the man is coming back, and Ted puts the gag back into her mouth.

The man catches Ted doing this and points the gun at him. He tells Ted to "nibble" on his wife. The man calls Ted "Theodore." Ted corrects him, telling him to call him "Ted." The man says his name is Siegfried. He agrees to call Ted by his chosen name. He then kisses Ted, twitches, says "my heart," and collapses. He tells Ted to get his nitro pills from the bathroom. Ted enters the bathroom and searches the medicine cabinet. He sees the window and worms his body halfway through it. Ted notices a man halfway out of the window above his window. Ted asks the man to call the police. The man twitches and vomits, just missing Ted, who jumps back into the bathroom.

Ted exits the bathroom, finding the woman and Siegfried on the floor. He picks the woman up and ungags her. She yells at him to get the nitro pills. Suddenly, Siegfried stands up. He tells them that it was a test, saying he's happy because he knows the woman loves him now. The woman takes a wry attitude, accusing Ted of having sex with her. Ted asks what he ever did to her and Siegfried. The woman mentions that Ted has "a huge cock." Ted denies this. Siegfried tells Ted to show him his cock. The woman does, too. Siegfried tells her to stop talking about Ted's cock. The woman says countless synonyms for the male phallus, driving Siegfried into a fit. Ted sees an opportunity and hurries out of the room.

The third segment, "The Misbehavers," starts with Ted answering a call at the front desk. A man (Antonio Banderas) orders a bottle of champagne. His wife (Tamlyn Tomita) combs her and the man's son Juancho's (Danny Verduzco) hair, trying to get the right look. The man takes over combing Juancho's hair, while the wife goes to work on their daughter Sarah's (Lana McKissack) hair. The man and wife finish the kids' hair. The kids go into the other room to watch television. The wife asks the man if they're going to have fun tonight. The man mentions that they could leave the kids in the room with the television set.

The man tells the kids that he and his wife are going to leave them alone and to be in bed before midnight. He tells them, "Don't misbehave." Juancho opens a window, saying it stinks in the room. The man comes back in, saying, "Behave." Ted arrives with the champagne. The man gives Ted $500 to check up on the kids every thirty minutes. The man and his wife leave. Ted and Sarah argue a bit as to when the kids should call him. Ted says to call only when necessary, and that if the kids are good, he'll bring them some milk and cookies. He leaves. Sarah tells Juancho that his feet stink.

Juancho turns on a station on the TV with a half-naked female dancer (Salma Hayek) dancing. Sarah calls Ted on the phone, telling him to turn "the nudie station" off. The kids keep complaining about the bad smell in the room. Sarah finds a syringe in a drawer and calls Ted to mention it to him. Ted tells her not to bother him again unless it's an emergency. Juancho shakes the champagne bottle until it blows its cork. He drinks some champagne.

The kids use a framed picture in the room as a target to throw the syringe at. Ted comes back with milk and saltines, telling the kids that they're going to bed. The kids dislike the saltines. Ted has the kids lie down and tells them to close their eyes. He pulls out some mentholatum ointment. He dabs the ointment over their eyes, telling them not to open them or it will burn. Ted exits the room. Fireworks go off outside the room's window.

Sarah walks with her eyes closed to the bathroom and rinses them off. She opens her eyes. She turns on the TV and drinks some champagne. Juancho steps to the bathroom and washes his face off, too. Vexed by the bad smell in the room, the kids get off of the bed. Sarah pulls the bed's top mattress aside and they find a dead woman stuffed in its bottom mattress. Sarah calls Ted, who becomes livid. Sarah tells Ted to get his ass to the room.

A discombobulated Ted sees the man walk into the hotel, carrying the passed-out wife. Ted runs to the elevator and goes upstairs. He rushes into the room to find Sarah drinking and Juancho smoking. Ted slaps the cigarette out of Juancho's mouth. Sarah moves the bed's top mattress aside and reveals the dead woman. Ted vomits. He knocks the champagne bottle out of Sarah's hand. Champagne spills from the bottle, and some of it moves toward the lit cigarette on the floor. Ted calls the police, saying there's a "dead whore" in the room. Sarah tells Ted not to call her a dead whore. Ted does it again, so Sarah stabs him in the leg with the syringe.

Ted screams, dropping the telephone. He steps on the TV's remote, accidentally changing the TV to the station with the dancing woman. The man gets to the room's door, carrying his wife. Flames erupt around the room due to the champagne catching fire. Ted grabs the dead woman's leg and yanks the syringe out of his thigh. The man walks in to see Ted standing with his hand on the dead woman's leg, along with the syringe in his other hand, Juancho smoking, Sarah holding the champagne bottle, the "nudie station" on the TV, and the room on fire. The man asks, "Did they misbehave?"

The last segment is "The Man From Hollywood." Ted knocks on a penthouse door. The formerly tied-up woman from the second segment opens the door and announces that the bellhop is here. Men's voices shout in appreciation and Ted steps into the penthouse. The actor Chester Rush (Quentin Tarantino) struts over to Ted and offers him some Cristal that Ted refuses at first, but later drinks. Chester invites Ted in and introduces him to his friends: the woman whose name is Angela, Norman (Paul Calderon), and Leo (Bruce Willis).

Chester notices that a bottle of Cristal has gone flat and goes off on a tirade against his friends for leaving it open. He opens another bottle of the champagne. Chester talks about his movies. Ted shows Chester and Norman the objects he's been asked to bring to the room, which include a block of wood and a sharp hatchet. Leo argues in a bedroom with his wife over the phone, and it ends badly. Leo has a temper tantrum, yelling and cursing.

Leo asks Ted if he's seen a TV episode called "The Man From Rio" starring Peter Lorre and Steve McQueen. In the episode, Lorre makes a bet with McQueen that McQueen can't light his cigarette lighter ten times in a row. If McQueen lights his lighter ten times in a row, McQueen gets Lorre's car. If he doesn't, Lorre gets to chop off McQueen's pinky. Leo says Norman has bet his pinky that he can light his cigarette lighter ten times in a row. Either Norman will do it, thus winning Chester's 1964 Chevy Chevelle or not, getting his finger cut off, as in Lorre and McQueen's bet. Ted tells the guys that they're drunk. Norman says they'd probably chicken out if they weren't intoxicated. Chester says in the event that Norman loses his finger, after they put it on ice, it can hopefully be reattached.

Chester says the men want Ted to be the finger-cutter, since he's a neutral stranger. Ted says, "I've gotta get out of here" and runs to the door. Chester offers Ted $100 to sit and listen to what he has to say. Ted sits down. Chester stacks a thousand dollars on the counter, and persuasively asks Ted if he'll want to remember for the rest of his life that he refused it for a second's work. Ted agrees to be the finger-cutter.

The men get into their positions. Norman gets his thumb on his lighter and flicks it once. It doesn't light, and Ted instantly drives the hatchet through Norman's pinky, severing it. Norman screams in agony. Ted scoops up his money and sashays off, getting onto an elevator. Leo and Chester scramble to get the shrieking Norman and his severed pinky into the elevator.