Lest we forget, not all terrorism involves Christian- and/or Trump- identifying white males, and it certainly doesn’t all happen in the United States. White supremacists are probably giddy as schoolgirls to discover a recreation of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks executed by Pakistani Islamic punks Lashkar-e-Taiba. Yes, this saucy little after-hours history lesson is tailor-made for bible-belt bigots and “waise the wall” warriors to scare their spawn to sleep at night.
The attacks lasted four days leaving 174 dead and 300 wounded, only a fraction of which gets seen in Hotel Mumbai, the centerpiece for the violence. Lacking both traditional hero and traditional villain, Hotel Mumbai kicked off with shoes. The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel is the kind of place where the staff has staff. One particularly low-level flunkee, Arjun (Dev Patel), shows up without proper shoes (his toddler hid them). Arjun pleads his way into a worknight. You know, Arj, sometimes being sent home for a wardrobe issue is not necessarily a bad thing.
Enter bad guys. They shoot up a train station and a restaurant on their way to the hotel; it’s like one of those “murder miles” where you try to get a beer at 11 different pubs before passing out … except this really is murder, pure-and-simple, in the name of Allah. Several have died before the hotel is taken, but the bulk of the picture involves young men with guns and grenades attacking hotel patrons, hotel staff, and then hotel defenders. The only people in the film given backstories are Arjun and a handful of rich, white guests, which seems … wrong because of venue and participants, but understandable given that I’m not sure I care to know who the attackers are or how their f***ed-up interpretation of scripture justifies this assholery … and the fact that the villains deliberately isolated westerners to make a political statement. So, yeah, 174 deaths and 300 wounded and this picture only talks in depth about the American (Armie Hammer), the American’s wife (Nazanin Boniadi), and the white Russian (Jason Isaacs) as the cocktails worth our time.
BTW, with a moustache and Sikh turban, Dev Patel looks a little like he’s going to a costume party. I understand a role is a role, but Dev really doesn’t strike me as Sikh which is a darn shame because the movie has a lovely “I’m scared cuz that man is wearing a turban” scene of understanding.
Out of curiosity, I always wondered exactly how sycophantic the concierge would be in these situations – “Does sir require an extra magazine? Very good.”
Hotel Mumbai works precisely because it lacks a proper hero or villain. This isn’t Die Hard; this is real life. This really happened, and in events this large and ugly, the heroes are many, and so are the villains. Watching this film, I wondered if this is how American conservatives view, say, Vice: these are events that are neither dishonest nor embellished and they distinctly eschew calls for rebuttal or justification. This is pretty indefensible stuff and it happened with unrepentant –nay, unrepentable– minds fully in control of what they were doing and why they were doing it. Yet they are reflections of segments, not wholly blown philosophies. Only a douchebag would condemn all of Islam for these attacks, just as only the same would condemn all of Christianity for the KKK or all of Republicanism for Dick Cheney. I’m not wild about the timing of this picture with white supremacy on the rise globally and a white supremacist in the White House, but I don’t think there’s anything dishonest about the picture itself, which makes Hotel Mumbai a pretty good thriller.
♪On a dark-hearted pathway, gun smoke the air
Warm blood flowing freely, lives greatly in despair
Up ahead in the courtyard, they saw their target all right…
I’m sorry; I can’t do this. There’s no way singing about the “Hotel Kali-fornia” will come off as anything other than crass. Terrorism is a terrible thing; I can only joke about it for so long … and that period has now ended.
Rated R, 123 Minutes
Director: Anthony Maras
Writer: John Collee, Anthony Maras
Genre: Evil
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Islamophobes
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Pollyannas
