HOTEL MUMBAI- Review

Another weekend, another impressive “indie” flick starring the talented Dev Patel. This time out he’s not the main star in a fictional thriller, as he was in THE WEDDING GUEST. Much like the Marigold Hotel films, he’s part of a formidable ensemble. Oh, this is about a rental residence also, but it’s far from that haven of romance and whimsy. This week’s film is set at a very real place and dramatizes the very real (perhaps too real for many squeamish sensitve filmgoers) horrors that occured just a few months and a decade ago. This locale is the oppulent Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, but because its staff and guests embodies the spirit of the city during those desperate days, it would be referred to as HOTEL MUMBAI.

The story begins in the sun-speckled Mumbai harbor on November 26, 2008, as an inflated raft carrying several young men in their early twenties drifts toward the shoreline. Each of them listens intently to a voice over their phone ear jacks, a voice spurring them on a quest. As they head to the streets, the men pair off in twos, grab their heavy travel bags, and head away to their assigned locations. Meanwhile, a young father (a year-old daughter and a baby on the way) named Arjun (Patel) rushes away to his job as part of the wait staff at the exclusive Taj Mahal Palace. He’s nearly sent home by the restaurant’s stern but understanding chef Oberoi (Anupam Kher) when he reports in wearing black sox and sandals (a dress shoe fell out of his backpack) until the master chef loans Arjun his spare set (smaller, of course). It’s a big day at the hotel, as they await the daughter of a prominent local family. After much prep, they check into one of the biggest suites. It’s a romantic getaway for Zahra (Nazanin Boniadi) and American hubby David (Armie Hammer), who also have a toddler and an old friend serving as a nanny, Sally (Tilda Cobham-Hervey). She stays behind in the room with the baby, while the newlyweds head to the in-hotel restaurant for a cozy dinner. Things go well, despite being seated across from crass Russian buisnessmanVasili (Jason Isaacs) who is loudly ordering his evening’s “entertainment” on his cell phone while flipping through a folder packed with 8X10 glossy photos of the local “talent’. Across town, the nightmare begins as two the young arrivals unzip their bags, pull out pistols, grenades, and automatic weapons and begin firing into the crowds at a packed train station. A mile away another two toss a grenade into the Leopold Cafe, then execute the survivors. The panic in the streets makes its way to the Taj, as the manager opens up the lobby to the frightened throngs. Unfortunately, there are two wolves amongst the scared sheep, and the Taj is under attack. What of the guests in the above floor restaurant? Can they hide from the killers? But can the Zahra and David stay put while Sally and their baby are in danger? Can any of them survive until the rescuers arrive?

Patel smoothly switches gears, from last week’s downbeat, surly thug for hire (in GUEST) to warm, hard-working family man as the kind-hearted Arjun. He’s a quiet, soft spoken “everyman” whose endless reserves of compassion and courage prove invaluable when the unthinkable happens. From his tender moments with his wife and daughter to the “tough love” encounters with his boss, Patel makes Anjul a compelling but reluctant hero. This is true in his rescue run with a wounded guest, but also when he must calm down another guest whose prejudices take over. It helps that his screen “father figure’ is the equally gifted Kher, who becomes the calm, composed “rock” that all those adrift swim toward. Oberoi stands tall in the face of doom, determined to protect the “guests’ while not insisting the staff stay put (and one or two do opt to take that secret service tunnel to the street). Kher’s another hero as he tries to calm the panicked as he formulates a way to get past the intruders to his “home”. Another unexpected heroic character is Isaacs, the crude, but courageous Vasili (in Vegas the casinos would consider him a “whale”), who will take the brunt of the abuse from the killers to “buy time” for his guests, refusing to cower at the end of a gun barrel. The same could be said for Hammer’s David who chooses his child over a relatively space hiding spot (although he’s not the “Die Hard” hard case the poster might have you think). Boniadi has much of that same determination as the defiant, smart Zahra, standing up for the home she loves, while her pal Sally tries to shelter a crying child eliciting believable hysteria from Cobham-Hervey.

First-time feature director Anthony Maras (who co-wrote the script with John Collee) maintains a sense of tension through most of this gripping docudrama thriller, letting the “white knuckle” moments suddenly burst through the quiet like a violent tidal wave on a calm beach. Even before the gunplay erupts, Maras produces a feeling of impending doom as we hear that voice prodding the crew, even telling them to keep the phone line open so he can hear the death rattles and blasts. And though the American and British actors are played up the marketing, they don’t overshadow the Eastern cast, particularly true as we follow two local police who slowly enter the Taj even though they know their pistols are little match for the crew’s near unlimited firepower. And though the loss of life and banal cruelty is heart-wrenching, the story is almost hopeful, even life assuring as we see staff and guests throw away their class distinctions and truly bond in order to not give in to despair. Though evil runs rampant, shooting flames and smoke into the dark skies, it never truly triumphs despite the body count. And that’s the real spirit that rings through the hallways of HOTEL MUMBAI.

3.5 Out of 5