Shockingly True

Rating: 8/10 (13 April 2019)

Hotel Mumbai Review:
Hotel Mumbai is based on the true story of the Taj Hotel terrorist attack in Mumbai. Hotel staff risk their lives to keep everyone safe as people make unthinkable sacrifices to protect themselves and their families. I didn't know much about this film. I saw the trailer once in February but didn't think much of it since I figured it wouldn't come to our area. Once it came to a nearby theater I decided I should see it having not much of an idea of what it was about. I thought this was a very suspenseful and great true story film. Some true story films are made with no reason for me to care as much as I should for other events. For example (and this will spark some controversy that I don't want to hear) the movie Unplanned isn't necessary to me even though it's a true story (I might go see that movie just to see if it's as bad as everyone is saying it is). The plot as a whole was amazing yet shocking that these events happened, and they were pretty recent (2008) and this is the first time I heard about it. I don't think there was a single bad performance in this film. The standouts for me were Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, and Tilda Cobham-Hervey. The scenes with Tilda were the most stress enduring for me, some parts even putting tears in my eyes. There are two people in it that if you think over the whole thing didn't have much of a purpose showing their story. It wasn't a bad decision but there wasn't a purpose effecting the story as a whole. This is Anthony Maras's first major film as a director and I hope he continues to do work with such films like these. The score composed by Volker Bertelmann (nominated for his score for the amazing film Lion) was good and captured the mood. The cinematography was fine but a little too shaky at times, especially the beginning. Also the editing at the beginning was odd to me. It kept switching abruptly changing the tones which I know was intentional for one of the scenes but it kind of bugged me when it wasn't really intentional. Another problem I had was though we got scenes with the antagonists I didn't quite catch what their motivation was to commit such an awful attack. I think it would benefit if it was a little clearer. Overall I would recommend this film. It's intense, shocking, and emotional. This is a relevant film and one of the best of the year so far. Definitely see Hotel Mumbai.
My Grade: A-