Hotel Mumbai

So if there is a theme between the two 9 hour plane rides I took besides finally delving into the Split/Glass movies, it's that I decided to watch a very unsettling movie when I probably should be evening out my sleep schedule. However, if I had to choose if this or Us was more unsettling, this movie wins by a long shot.

Hotel Mumbai is the biographic telling of a horrendous terrorist attack that occurred in Mumbai India in 2008 at the Taj Hotel and other locations that led to 174 people killed and over 300 people wounded.

The premise for these attack is that a group of terrorists come to Mumbai and set off an orchestrated attack on multiple locations throughout the city of Mumbai. While other places are attacked and that is depicted in the film, the majority of the action happens at the Taj Hotel where all the main characters are either staying or working. The cast is relatively large and I can't say that there is one main MAIN character, but the closest thing to that would be Dev Patel's character, a server at the restaurant in the hotel.

The beginning of the movie sets off on a high pitched unsettling tone because it does not take long for the attacks to begin. These terrorists move to different locations, firing at people indiscriminately, causing really intense chaos and carnage.

Eventually, survivors of previous attacks make their way to the Taj Hotel as well as the terrorists and the carnage continues there. Patel is one of multiple characters who's sole purpose in this movie is to survive.

The reason I am singling out Patel's character is that the real soul of this movie comes from the actions taken by the staff of the Taj Hotel to help the guests and who made up half of the casualties during the entire attack. Patel is one of many people who were pretty heroic in helping others survive for as long as they could, whether that meant hiding, barricading themselves, or running. I will talk about the nature of this film in general and how it sets itself apart from others like it in a super unsettling way, but there is an inspiring heroism you see from the entire cast.

Other characters include a wealthy couple (played by Armie Hammer and Nazanin Boniadi, a mysterious Russian guest (played by Jason Isaacs), as well as the other staff of the hotel. And yes, these characters do have names but that is honestly not the point of this movie. I doubt any of these characters are one to one representations of real people and the emphasis of the movie is more on the tragedy and real-life horror of this situation rather than individual characters.

The super fascinating thing about this movie is that while a big part of the movie is the personal heroism of the people at the hotel, especially the service staff, this is not a scenario of regular people standing up to the men with the guns. Anybody who tries to fight these terrorists in an American vigilante style gets blown away very quickly. This is not like the passengers of Flight 93 where they overpower the terrorists, or like the guys on that French train that overpowered the gunmen. This is first and foremost a story of horrific survival. And that is very unsettling. It's even more unsettling in today's current events. I'm going to try and avoid getting to political, but the terrorists in this movie, Muslim or not, had far more rounds and weaponry than any one that would have been a convenient "good man with a gun". There is a small part of the movie that shows how a "good man with a gun" would fair against someone with the ability to shoot multiple rounds without having to reload. The only people who are able to put up a fight at the end are the special forces that finally arrive.

I know its a movie, set in India, dealing with Islamic terrorism, but again, it's unsettling because nobody should have access to that much firepower except the people who know how to use it and you feel the visceral deaths due to those weapons.

To the films credit, it made me feel a lot. It made me feel horror, dread, sadness, anger, and overall just kind of sick to my stomach. The way they portray the shooters is also really fascinating and at the end when these guys get gunned down, it is both immensely satisfying but also just kind of sickening because so much of their goal is carried out by that point. So in case I haven't made it clear before hand, Viewer Discretion is immensely advised on this film, it is a tough one to sit through.

Another note, this is not a short movie. It clocks in at 2 hours and that 2 hours and they do not waste any time with some really intense visuals. Innocent people are being killed, there are a lot of suspenseful moments, and honestly, this felt more like a horror film than any of the films I've watched in the past few weeks because I was very uncomfortably on the edge of my seat this entire movie.

I think the acting also makes this movie very unsettling because it is very good and realistic. Everyone is scared, but they have their own reasons to survive. Hammer and Bonaidi's characters have a child in the hotel they are separated from at the time of the attack so that is driving force, Patel has his own family. The hotel staff have this immense loyalty to their guests that is inspiring and tragic.

Again, it makes it tough to watch when this movie makes it very clear that nobody is safe in this film. At the beginning, I was thinking that a lot of the introduced characters were going to make it, but this movie does not hold back on brutally doing away with its characters.

I think my feelings towards this movie are still pretty fresh and raw so its hard to point out anything (good or bad) more. Overall, it's an experience and not one I am really interested in going through again. It is a stressful movie. I think by the end its a good thing because the movie does attempt to pull some of that stress off your shoulders with a release and ending that had me in tears. But overall, I'd say this is a movie you need to be pretty selective about. If you're looking for a well acted, well written suspense thriller, be warned that as much as they try to relieve it in the end, this is not a satisfying movie. It's gritty, it's visceral, and you probably will not have a good time watching it, especially in today's current climate. But I found the movie to be relevant on many different levels and definitely took a different take on this kind of tragedy movie.

While I have a hard time recommending this movie, I do have to applaud it for applying a sense of reality to this real life event. I mentioned it before, but I think the real achievement of this movie was how it portrayed the spirit of humanity in the face of a dominating threat. Again, there is no heroic action figure in this movie. The good guys only win because they held out long enough.

Overall, its a recommend but with a huge HUGE asterisks of, know what you're getting into with this film.

But those are my thoughts on Hotel Mumbai. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!