I've found myself in this macabre rhythm of seeing films based on depressing historical events lately, and each are good for their different reasons. You can go read my 13 Hours review if you'd like before getting into Hotel Mumbai (about the terrorist attacks on the Taj Mahal hotel), but this is probably a bit more gruesome given the bodycount, though the storytelling is just as straightforward.

Written and directed by Anthony Maras in his feature film debut, the film's main focuses of attention are on both sides of the service desk at the hotel. You have Arjun (Dev Patel, The Man Who Knew Infinity), one of the more prominent concierges, then you have David (Armie Hammer, The Social Network) and his muslim wife Zahra (Nazanin Boniadi, Ben-Hur) with their newborn son, and Vasili (Jason Isaacs, The Death of Stalin), a Russian covert agent. All of whom are at the Taj when gunmen take the hotel over beginning on November 26, 2008.

Like Paul Greengrass' 22 July about the Utoya attacks in Norway in 2011, Maras does not turn away from the violence in Hotel Mumbai. Victims killed from a distance are shown, but closer in murders include an edit or quick camera jerk away from the person to be killed, so you certainly sense it coming. More than that, you also see the survival stories that come from it by some of those in the hotel. You do get surprised on how some of them go down, but in a way it's smart by Maras to do it. Get you invested in their fate, than kick you in the gut.

The performances in the ensemble are up to the task; Hammer, Boniadi and Patel are particularly good but the group as a whole are without complaint. The attackers even get a little bit of attention as well. Some of them show their simplicity(?) in attack. They were coordinated with phone calls and walkie-talkies, but most if not all lacked the rage from being exposed to Western behaviors that others would have seen and known how to hate. This was reminiscent to me of HBO's Terror in Mumbai, which not only explained this but the Indian police inaction, which this film flirts with but doesn't go in on.

There have been numerous terror attacks on Western targets through the years that resulted in dozens of deaths, and Hotel Mumbai shows us the events as they are known, as they unfold, but focuses on some of the stories of perseverance over a blame game, and like the Benghazi movie I just got done watching, makes for a gripping experience to watch. Maras has made a film worthy of your time and attention with this.

The 2.39:1 presentation of Hotel Mumbai looks good. It juggles some visual effects like exterior flames, interior ones like gunbattles, and newsreel footage of the era accurately and without image artifacts that would deter from the viewing. Colors are natural and not oversaturated as are flesh tones, though some of the tighter shots have a lack of image detail that's more noticeable than troublesome, and chalked up more to intent than anything else. It's fine viewing material.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track sounds very good from the get go. The din of the pre-work day gets underway and sounds clean and immersive, the bullets going through the lobby of the Taj and in the train station include solid panning and directional effects. When larger ordnance is used to flush out the gunmen, the low-end activity of the subwoofer helps convey the power needed. The moments when things get more room to room also help give you the sense of dread in the silence onscreen. Really good stuff by Universal.

Not a heckuva lot here, there's "Story and Cast" (2:40), which looks at the story and on themes and meanings from the film, "Finding the True Story: (2:16), which is kind of self-explanatory, "Humanity Within Tragedy" (1:43), looking at that more important meaning in the film, and "Real-Life Heroes" (2:24), which show us who did what well.

In Hotel Mumbai you get several familiar faces avoid the spotlight and focus on telling what turns out to be a far more gripping story than you would realize coming into it. Technically the disc looks and sounds fine, though the extras could use a little bit of work. It's definitely worth checking out.