Hotel Mumbai


Hotel Mumbai is a 2018 action thriller film directed by Anthony Maras and co-written by Maras and John Collee. An Australian-American-Indian co-production, it is inspired by the 2009 documentary Surviving Mumbai about the 2008 Mumbai attacks at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in India. The film stars Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Anupam Kher, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Jason Isaacs, Suhail Nayyar, Nagesh Bhosle and Natasha Liu Bordizzo.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2018, and had its Australian premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival on 10 October 2018. The film was released in Australia on 14 March 2019, and in the United States on 22 March 2019.

Plot

On 26 November 2008, young waiter Arjun reports for work at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, India, under head chef Hemant Oberoi, who reminds his staff that "Guest is God". The day's guests include British-Iranian heiress Zahra Kashani and her American husband David, with their infant son Cameron and his nanny Sally, as well as ex-Spetznaz operative Vasili.
That night, 10 terrorists who were part of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, directed by a man known as "the Bull", launch a coordinated assault against 12 locations across Mumbai, including the hotel. As the local police are not properly trained or equipped to handle the attack, they can only wait for special forces to arrive from New Delhi. In the ensuing chaos, Arjun, David, Zahra and Vasili are trapped in the hotel restaurant with several other guests while Sally, unaware of what is going on, remains with Cameron in their hotel room.
David sneaks past the terrorists and successfully reaches Sally and Cameron. Arjun follows Oberoi's instructions and escorts the guests under his care to the Chambers Lounge, an exclusive club hidden within the hotel, where they hope to remain safe. David, Sally and Cameron attempt to regroup with them, but David is captured by the terrorists at gunpoint while Sally and Cameron are trapped in a closet. As a hostage David is tied up on the floor in a separate room.
Meanwhile, police officer DC Vam and his partner decide to enter the hotel in the hopes of reaching the security room so they can track the terrorists' movements. Arjun attempts to escort a mortally wounded guest, Bree, off the premises so she can reach a hospital. The two encounter the police but Bree panics and flees, only to be shot dead by a terrorist. Arjun escorts the police to the security room, and they discover the terrorists are about to break into the Chambers Lounge using the identification of a policeman they killed earlier. The police officer DC Vam orders Arjun to stay put as he goes to attack the terrorists, successfully wounding one before being driven off. Against Oberoi's advice, Zahra and Vasili decide to leave the lounge to escape, but they are also caught and taken hostage. The terrorists force Zahra and Vasili at gunpoint to join their other hostages, all of whom are lying trussed up on the floor. Before long, Zahra and Vasili are similarly tied up and Zahra joins her husband, David, on the floor with her hands tied behind her back.
Eventually, India special forces arrive, and the Bull orders the terrorists to move to the final phase of their plan: burning the hotel down. The terrorists leave their wounded member, Imran, to guard the bound hostages at gunpoint. But Bull eventually tells Imran to kill all the hostages, who remain powerless on the floor with their wrists secured behind them. Imran shoots both David and Vasili, but spares Zahra when she begins reciting a Muslim prayer, ignoring the Bull's command to shoot her regardless. No longer a hostage, Zahra manages to untie herself and escape.
Arjun regroups with Oberoi and evacuates the remaining guests, stumbling upon Sally and Cameron in the process. The special forces kill the remaining terrorists, and Zahra is evacuated by an Aerial Work Platform, reuniting with Sally and Cameron. After the hotel is secure, Arjun returns home and reunites with his wife and daughter.
A closing script reveals that those responsible for planning the attack remain free to this day, but the hotel was repaired and parts reopened within months of the event. The final scenes show a memorial to the staff and guests who fought in the Battle of Hotel Mumbai, and footage of the grand reopening of the hotel, 21 months later.

Cast

Casting

On 11 February 2016, it was announced that Dev Patel and Armie Hammer had been cast in the film, along with actors Nazanin Boniadi, Teresa Palmer, and Suhail Nayyar, while Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Anupam Kher were in negotiations; Palmer and Coster-Waldau ultimately were not involved. John Collee and Anthony Maras wrote the screenplay, which Maras directed, while Basil Iwanyk produced the film through Thunder Road Pictures along with Jomon Thomas from Xeitgeist, Arclight Films' Gary Hamilton and Mike Gabrawy, Electric Pictures' Andrew Ogilvie, and Julie Ryan.
In June, Tilda Cobham-Hervey joined the cast after Teresa Palmer pulled out early into her second pregnancy, and in August, Jason Isaacs was cast. On 7 September 2016, Natasha Liu Bordizzo joined the film to play Bree, a tourist caught in the attack.

Filming

In August 2016, principal photography on the film began in the Adelaide Film studios, run by the South Australian Film Corporation. Filming continued in India in early 2017.

Release

In May 2016, The Weinstein Company acquired U.S. and U.K. distribution rights to the film. However, in April 2018, it was announced that The Weinstein Company would no longer distribute the film. In August 2018, Bleecker Street and ShivHans Pictures acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film.
The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2018. It was theatrically released in Australia on 14 March 2019, by Icon Film Distribution, and the United States on 22 March 2019. It is scheduled for a United Kingdom release in September 2019, by Sky Cinema and NowTV. Sky Cinema is promoting this as a "Sky Cinema Original" in the United Kingdom.
The movie was pulled from cinemas in New Zealand due to the Christchurch mosque shootings on 15 March 2019, with showings suspended until 28 March.
Netflix was set to distribute the film in India and other South and Southeast Asian territories. However, Netflix later dropped the film, after a contractual dispute arose with Indian distributor Plus Holdings. The film is scheduled to be released theatrically in India on 29 November 2019 by Zee Studios and Purpose Entertainment. An official trailer of the film in Hindi was released by Zee Studios on 23 October 2019.

Reception

Box office

Hotel Mumbai has grossed $9.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $11.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $21.2 million.
The film opened in four theaters in the U.S., on 22 March, and expanded to 924 on 29 March, grossing $3.1 million in that second weekend.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 76% based on 204 reviews, with an average of 6.91/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Its depiction of real-life horror will strike some as exploitative, but Hotel Mumbai remains a well-made dramatization of tragic events." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film an overall positive score of 77% and a 50% "definite recommend".
Peter Debruge of Variety magazine wrote: "Sitting through the harrowing events again nearly a decade later could hardly be described as entertainment, and the film plays to many of the same unseemly impulses that make disaster movies so compelling, exploiting the tragedy of the situation for spectacle's sake."

Accolades