By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Anthony Maras
Cast: Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Anupam Kher, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Alex Pinder, Amandeep Singh, Suhail Nayyar, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Angus McLaren, Yash Trivedi, Vipin Sharma, Manoj Mehra, Carmen Duncan and Jason Isaacs.
Rating: Excellent.
Filmmaker Anthony Maras makes his directorial debut with “Hotel Mumbai” and I was very impressed with this movie.
Based on true events the story centers on Arjun (Dev Patel), an Employee of the luxurious Taj Hotel in Mumbai India. One night a group of Muslim Terrorists attack the hotel guests and employees.
Now Arjun, the guests and employees will risk their lives and figure out how to survive this terrifying event that is considered one of the greatest genocides that shocked the world in 2008.
The elements that work on “Hotel Mumbai” was that from the beginning the theme was stated and we knew exactly how the movie was going to turn.
The choices that Maras made in terms of shots and the characters that were created in this film were marvelous and I like how he played with the internal conflicts of all the characters, specially Dev Patel´s who gives a convincing performance.
I´m impressed with the amount of research that Maras did and John Collee whom he joined forces on the screenplay. Both of them wrote a real, moving and intense film that is so far one of the greatest surprises of 2019. I loved how Maras played with tension in every single scene and how he raised the stakes in his story.
Another factor that made the movie was really good was the score composed by Volker Bertelmann who´s music was intense at all moments, specially when the attacks of the Hotel take place.
The editing for this film was crucial since for films like this the pacing is critical due to the subject matter.
I´m very happy that a filmmaker like Maras had the guts to tell a story like this one and this are the type of films that we need to see. It´s a beautifully crafted film from beginning to end.
Not only Dev Patel gives a great performance, but Armie Hammer is great, Jason Isaacs and Anupam Kher, who was on point with his performance and his character represents a key role for this movie.
I didn´t know what to expect of “Hotel Mumbai” and I was not aware of the events of this film and I was very pleased with the result.
One piece of advice is that I recommend that you are prepared at all times before you watch this film since the amount of violence is very big, so as the intensity of the film.
“Hotel Mumbai” is so far one of the biggest surprises of this year. I highly recommend it due to Anthony Maras´s directing, score, editing and performances by the cast.