Hotel Mumbai (2019) - Movie Review

This is a difficult film to talk about. Productions like this that dramatise real-life tragedies have that aspect baked into them from the get-go, but this has inadvertently gained another layer of unpleasantness in light of the recent mosque massacre in Christchurch. Watching a film where Muslims are endangered by terrorists could very easily fall into the realms of exploitation, as most thrillers with action elements tend do to by their very nature, and considering recent events, that’s not a sensation we particularly need right now. Thankfully, in the hands of director/co-writer/co-editor Anthony Maras, an Aussie on his feature-length debut, what we get is a highly visceral but still tactful recreation of the 2008 attack on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.

While there are a few foreign actors involved, like Armie Hammer and the conspicuously Russian-accented Jason Isaacs, this is as far from a white saviour narrative as it is possible to get. This is the story primarily about the staff at the hotel, thematically led by Dev Patel in another astounding performance, and the film keeps that focus well in mind throughout.

For as much blood spray and frequently grisly violence takes place, the audience isn’t expected to engage with their own bloodlust to be invested. Rather, the main tension comes out fearing for the lives of the staff and the guests as the terrorists lay siege to the hotel. It’s quite nerve-racking how the individual set pieces are arranged and presented, emphasising silence and utter dread at the proximity the characters are to being killed. It feels like something Kathryn Bigelow would put together in how deep-set the terror is here, and it manages to work along the same lines as something send chills through the system.

It even manages what should be a nigh-on impossible tightrope walk in managing to humanise the terrorists involved, yet not to the point where we’re actively meant to feel sorry for the people ending lives. They are presented as human beings, right down to a weirdly funny moment between two of them involving food containing pork, and between their lower-class surroundings and their continuous direction via the unseen Brother Bull (or Brother Bullshit Artist as I’ve taken to calling him, because nothing shows less respect for terrorists than responding with snark rather than fear), they are shown as being manipulated into events through their families and their faith, and even showing internal conflict.

Without getting into heavy spoilers, there’s a moment near the end where one of the terrorists is confronted by a Muslim guest and, in the space of a few moments with very little dialogue, you see the terrorist go through an existential crisis as a result. It’s powerful stuff that helps keep the film’s views on faith in focus, something furthered by what Dev Patel brings to the table.

While the repeated phrase "the guest is God" amongst the hotel staff does smell lightly of non-white servitude… it’s also a phrase that, to anyone who has ever worked in the service sector of the workforce, will sound familiar regardless of ethnic background. But that’s only the surface of it: The way it gets implemented overall is as a means to highlight the difference between the terrorists and the ones they hope to terrorise. A comparison between using one’s faith in a god to try and protect life, and using one’s faith as rationale to end life.

Knowing how hideously frequent it is to see moderate Muslims being told to take responsible for the actions of extremists (usually at the hands of Christians, if you look closely enough), this insistence on drawing a line between them and showing what one’s servitude to a deity can do to enrich the soul rather than simply poison it is quite gratifying, and it again helps to make this film’s events out to be more than just watching people die for the sake of escapist entertainment. We’re meant to care about the victims. We want to see them survive the events, which makes it hurt that much more when we see those who don’t survive. It’s a powerful and consistently bloody affair, but one that keeps the audience’s empathy in the driver seat, a difficult task for anyone let alone a first-timer.