The Ritz

Directed by Richard Lester, The Ritz follows Jack Weston’s Gaetano Proclo as he accidentally winds up inside an elaborate gay bathhouse while on the run from his psychotic brother-in-law (Jerry Stiller’s Carmine Vespucci). Filmmaker Richard Lester, working from Terrence McNally’s screenplay, delivers a mostly intolerable endeavor that grows less and less interesting (and more and more interminable) as it progresses, which is a shame, ultimately, given the kernel of potential within the premise and the movie’s roster of admittedly talented performers – with, in terms of the latter, Lester squandering the efforts of his talented stars and such periphery players as F. Murray Abraham and Treat Williams. The picture establishes its far-from-engrossing atmosphere early on with an endless sequence wherein various character check in to the aforementioned bathhouse, and there’s little doubt that The Ritz, from there, segues into an episodic, momentum-free midsection consisting of one misguided and hopelessly unfunny interlude after the next – which, when coupled with a thoroughly underwhelming and anticlimactic finale stretch, cements the flm’s place as a tedious misfire that contains few, if any, wholeheartedly positive attributes.

* out of ****