Hotel Mumbai

Do people really want to recall the terror incident at India’s luxurious Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in 2008 in such vivid detail? Hotel Mumbai puts that question to the test.

Even if the answer is affirmative, however, this re-enactment doesn’t provide much insight beyond what many viewers probably already know about the true-life tragedy, or about societal response to mass shootings in general, more than a decade later.

The historic hotel is situated in downtown Mumbai, its posh elegance in many ways contrasting with the urban milieu surrounding it. The site also became the primary target for a group of Pakistani militants looking to cause destruction during a holiday weekend.

By the time news of attacks elsewhere in the city reached those inside the hotel, they were essentially trapped. From there, the film focuses on a handful of guests and staff members trying to survive the gunfire, including a waiter (Dev Patel); a newlywed (Armie Hammer) and his wife (Nazanin Bonialdi), who become separated from their newborn and nanny; a smarmy Russian businessman (Jason Clarke); and the hotel chef (Anupam Kher), who helps to round up everyone in a secure private room for safety, at least temporarily.

The chaos of the hotel attack and its immediate aftermath are depicted with an intimate sense of urgency, especially in its sequences of harrowing nonchalant violence that smartly avoid politics.

The screenplay by John Collee (Happy Feet) and rookie director Anthony Maras limits the character development for both heroes and villains, struggling to retain a consistent level of suspense in part because it fails to establish a sufficient emotional foothold.

In other words, instead of viewing the incident from various points of view — hostages, terrorists, police, etc. — a more focused perspective would have been beneficial. Meanwhile, the embellishments leave some narrative gaps in logic that are difficult to reconcile.

Without supplying any context, Hotel Mumbai evidently aims to replicate the experience of enduring a terror attack from the inside, when imminent danger overshadows any knowledge about the identities or motives of the perpetrators. As such, it’s an eye-opening peek into the relative inability of third-world cities and countries to adequately respond to tragedies of this nature.

Yet considering the timely and provocative subject matter, the film only sporadically gets the mind thinking or the adrenaline pumping.

Rated R, 123 minutes.