“No Vacancy” is pretty vacant. A contrived and aggressive comedy about a bunch of lowlifes who inhabit a fringe L.A. motel, first feature by Moscow-born, USC-trained writer-director Marius Balchunas aims most of its scenes well over the top and takes a steep plunge as a result.
In its well-worked genre, pic represents the polar opposite of “Grand Hotel,” and while it has no realistic theatrical potential, it could generate some minor TV-cable-video action on the basis of its sprinkling of attractive cast names.
Script’s attention is predictably divided amongst numerous denizens of the seedy Pink Motel, where the “bizarre” prevails: Two losers wake up with hookers, then proceed to accost a beauty-obsessed woman (Lolita Davidovich); the motel owner (Joaquim de Almeida) enacts a Latino cliche of endlessly berating his daughter (Patricia Velasquez) for sleeping with a man; a voluptuous young woman (Christina Ricci) awakes to find a handsome stranger (Timothy Olyphant) in her bed.
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Last relationship is the best developed, but nothing here is credible, and comic tone is wearyingly forced. Maia Javan’s’ production design and Denis Maloney’s lensing create a pleasing, colorful look.
