Portraying a real-life national tragedy on-screen can often be tricky, especially when they’re of an event that’s still fresh in everyone’s memories. Audiences can easily perceive the filmmakers as taking the deaths of the victims involved and exploiting them without really offering much to say about the situation. A movie like United 93 often serves as a film tactfully portraying a national tragedy, as the film served as a way to honor the victims of the terrorist hijacking and show their bravery in the face of death. Another film that offers this same sort of insight is Hotel Mumbai, which may not be based on an event that’s etched in the minds of American audiences the way United 93 was, but touches on many of the same themes.
The film depicts the 2008 Taj Mahal Hotel Palace attacks in Mumbai. When ten terrorists, led by an unseen man named Bull, make their way into Mumbai and begin an attack that spreads across twelve different locations, four make their way into the hotel, trapping countless employees and guests inside. One group led by the hotel’s head chef Hermant Oberoi (Anupam Kher) and one of his staff, Arjuan (Dev Patel) takes refuse in the hotel’s hidden Chambers Lounge, that include Iranian-British heiress Zahra (Nazanin Boniadi) and ex-Spetznaz operative Vasili (Jason Isaacs), while Zahra’s American husband David (Armie Hammer) sneaks through the hotel’s various floors to find and rescue his child before it’s too late.
The film feels like the set-up for a testosterone-fueled action movie. Though while there’s a severe amount of graphic violence here, this is anything but. The film kicks off with the terrorists making their way into Mumbai and the attacks begin shortly afterwards, with much of the movie depicting the terrorists brutally gunning down their victims, filled with agonizing scenes of people crying and begging for mercy before mercilessly meeting their end.
The film’s use of music is ultimately very important here, as it instantly sets the mood for this film. The film is a stark contrast to another film starring Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire, which drew upon classic Indian music to instill a sense of hopefulness. In Hotel Mumbai, the type of music heard in the background are Indian tunes that instill feelings of despair and dread, and are constantly called back on as the tragedies take place.
The sounds of the guns firing feels more real than ever here. As opposed to a typical action movie, where the depiction of people getting gunned down is portrayed in a more desensitized matter, the film hones in on each moment of death and destruction. The sounds of guns firing easily becomes the dominant sound in the scene, and it’s such a deafening noise that one can almost feel the force of impact themselves sitting in the audience. There are plenty of moments where one sits in the audience and feels like they are right there, in the middle of all the atrocities portrayed in the film.
Because of this, the film can at times feel borderline uncomfortable. These moments of innocent people horribly meeting their end dominate much of the movie’s two-hour run time, and at times, with so many scenes dedicated to these moments, it almost doesn’t feel right seeing this all unfold onscreen. To see such a horrible event drawn out over the course of a two hour movie recreated for the sake of making a narrative movie can easily feel cheap to some, especially given the film’s appropriate grim feel that looms over it.
At first, some may wonder at times what may be the point of seeing this all recreated, especially when this event was already covered in the 2009 documentary Surviving Mumbai. While not all films are happy experiences, to simply just see a massacre recreated doesn’t feel like it goes anywhere. However, hidden among all the doom and gloom is not just a tribute to those who lost their lives, but a tribute to the bravery of those who helped countless others survive the attacks, through its main characters.
And when the film focuses to these characters, that’s where the audience finds the film’s heart. While the main characters weren’t real people, they were all mashups of multiple real-life individuals who either survived or lost their lives in the attacks, so many of their actions do reflect actual occurrences during the attacks. The only exception was Chef Oberoi, who is a local celebrity in Mumbai from well before the attacks and is the only real life figure directly portrayed in the film. Before the hotel attack begins, the film quickly establishes each of these characters, and does a great job summing up their backstories and personalities before the main conflict of the movie kicks off. And as the real-life horrors portrayed in the movie unfold, the audience does have a few recognizable narratives to follow.
Scenes focusing on Patel’s Arjun or Hammer’s David add a much-needed sense of humanity to the mostly grim film. While audiences are left to wonder throughout the film whether or not they’ll make it out alive, they maintain a great sense of hope in the face of a gruesome situation, which is what the audience ultimately latches onto. Though despite none of these characters technically being real people, the film doesn’t take liberties with them to the point that they’re embodying action movie cliches. There aren’t motivational speeches, nor are there moments where characters attempt to combat the terrorists head on. They feel like real people, who simply have to put aside fears of dying in order to hopefully save countless others. And that’s what this film ultimately pays tribute to.
Hotel Mumbai is a brutal watch. A two hour movie filled mostly with real-life death and destruction recreated on screen may not seem like a good time for many. However, despite the film’s mostly dark tone, it does manage to show its humane side plenty of times through its small set of main characters spread throughout the titular hotel. If one can sit through the horrific violence, they will find a fitting tribute to a group of people who did whatever they could to get as many people as possible to safety, embodying the definition of heroes.
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