The Doorman – Die Hard in a Hotel
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Writer: Loir Chefetz, Joe Swanson (Screenplay) Greg Williams, Matt McAllester (Story)
Starring: Ruby Rose, Jena Reno, Aksel Hennie, rupert Evans, Julian Feder, Kila Lord Cassidy
Plot: A woman returns from combat and befriends a family in NYC. A gang of thieves plot to take the family’s valuables, and she is all that stands between them and their lives.
Tagline – Her Second chance is their Last Hope
Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Doorman starts as we see how Ali (Rose) gets caught up in an ambush in her military service, being the lone survivor, Ali is trying to put her life back together in New York when Uncle Pat (Whitchurch) gets her a job as the Doorman in the Carrington hotel, the same hotel where her late sister’s family live.
With hotel is coming up for renovation, which the lead doorman Borz (Hennie) has been planning for with Victor Dubois (Reno) looking for his fortune in the hotel, it just so happens to be in the same room as Ali’s family Jon Stanton (Evans) and his kids, Max (Feder) and Lily (Cassidy), which will see her needing to use her skills to save her family.
Thoughts on The Doorman
Characters & Performances – Ali is a former decorated soldier who was left traumatised by her last mission leading her to return home to New York City, she is given help from family in the form of a job opportunity, one which will keep her calm and helping people as a doorman. She is given a chance to reconnect with her family, which will become easier when she needs to use all her military skills to save them from criminals that hold them hostage. Ruby Rose does get to show us her action chops here, taking this role and letting it make her one of the strongest action heroines of the year. Victor Dubois is the man behind the criminal action, he has put a team together and believes he will be doing everything for a better cause, to make himself richer, he will get frustrated that the people around him aren’t as smart as he is though. Borz is the doorman that hires Ali, he is however the person that has arranged the operation, he has planted himself in deep, which will give him the connection to the residents in the hotel. Jean Reno is entertaining as the posh villain, while Aksel Hennie is the one who is more of a loose cannon, goes against him well, showing the clash in styles we see. The rest of the cast include the men in the criminal group, who are mostly disposable for Ali to pick off, we also get the family who have been through a tragedy that are falling apart, but this event will start to bring them closer.
Story – The story here follows a former soldier that takes a small job role as a doorman to get her feet back on the ground, reconnect with her family, until she needs to step up and fight to save them from a group of criminals holing them hostage. If you are going to break this story down, there is no easier way than to say it is like Die Hard, it is a lone fighter, fighting back against a group of criminals in a tower building, this time a hotel, that must use their skills to pick them off, one by one. This is a formula that has worked well before and this story does nothing wrong to make this an enjoyable experience. It isn’t difficult to watch, it doesn’t offend, it keeps everything simple and effective.
Themes – The Doorman brings us a broken soldier into an action situation, one where they will need to look to fight back to save loved ones and stop criminals. The action sequences are designed to show off Ruby Rose’s fighting abilities, trying to create a new action star here, which does work for the most part. The singular location shows us how a building being worked on could easily turn into a battleground even in the middle of New York City.
Final Thoughts – The Doorman is a fun action movie, that uses the Die Hard formula well to create a Ruby Rose action character.
The Doorman is available on Digital Download 18 January and DVD 25 January 2021 from Lionsgate UK