Movie Breakdown: Hotel Mumbai (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
Before this screener arrived at my digital door, I’d only heard of this movie because of my strange inclination to be unexcited by films starring either Dev Patel or Armie Hammer, to which Hotel Mumbai features both.
Post-Screening Ramble:
You spend a lot of time during Hotel Mumbai waiting for something to happen to Armie Hammer. The same goes for Jason Isaacs, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Nazanin Boniadi, Natasha Liu Bordizzo and any other character (the Australian guy at the beginning) who isn’t a member of the Hotel Taj staff. Basically, any character that isn’t from India, or the general area, in this film does nothing but slow the plot down before escaping either the hotel or the mortal coil.
This is, or should be, a film based on the true story of the brutal terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008, when a group of extremists shot their way through some of the major attractions in the city. The longest contained battle took place in the Hotel Taj as the terrorists went floor-to-floor massacring guests for almost nine hours. Those who survived the horror, survived due to the unbelievable bravery of the staff of the hotel. This should be a film about Arjun (Dev Patel), a Sikh waiter who went above and beyond his duty as a member of the service profession to protect the guests of the hotel; and it should be about Chef Hermant Oberoi (Anupam Kher), who marshaled his staff to save hundreds of lives. This should be the story of the inexperienced, under-trained Mumbai cops who sacrificed their lives to give the hostages a chance to escape or the young chefs who brandished kitchen knives and mallets against the potential of men with armed guns. And for large chunks, it is. Patel and Kher are both great as men who knowingly step into danger to save a handful of uptight, obnoxious rich people from horrible death. The scenes revolving around their characters crackle with emotion and energy and you can feel director Anthony Maras’ excitement for these parts above the stodgy plot and character machinations of the hotel guests. The film’s portrayal of the terrorists is the best part of the film, with Maras showing a group of young men killing but entirely stripped of flash or swagger. These are young men killing without emotion or remorse and their staggering murder spree is cast in the starkest, most matter-of-fact light.
Maras does a good enough job of weaving the lives, storylines and motivations of this large cast together. His introduction of the terrorists is simple, shorn of glamour and paired against the sparkle of the Hotel Taj a beautiful, almost wordless descriptor of the class disparity that might have lead to the attack. When the worlds collide and the terrorists attack the Taj, Maras continues to do an adequate job of balancing the storylines, but aces a larger issue: the stories of the wealthy guests are plodding and add nothing to the story.
There’s an argument that perhaps Maras wanted to show that though this happened in India it was an attack on an international scale, and thus he decided to include a bunch of far more recognizable light-skinned people but honestly, every time the scene shifts and we’re once again hanging out with Hammer and his nanny as they try and decide if they’re going to leave their room or not, the film grinds to a halt. Every time Jason Isaacs acts like a mean Russian guy with a heart of gold (though his bite move near the end is slightly satisfying), the brakes are tapped and the film feels listless. The moments that matter are Dev Patel’s Arjun continuing to endanger himself to save people he doesn’t know who at times believe him to be a terrorist or the Chef’s strict adherence to his policy that “Guests are God” or the sacrifice of the women receptionists who refuse to help the terrorists. And as good as they are on screen, there’s a better version of this film uncluttered by what happens to the rich lady, her architect husband and their nanny. When it’s good, Hotel Mumbai is a shocking, tense portrayal of humans at their very worst. When Armie Hammer’s on screen, well, it very much isn’t.
One Last Thought:
There is a real Die Hard feeling to this film and every time Hammer is sneaking through the halls, or hiding behind food carts or anywhere near any of the terrorists, I wanted – because my mind is addled by action films – for him to disarm his captor and then blast his way to safety. Spoiler alert: this never happens.
