Hotel Mumbai 2019

10 people....., TEN, relatively lightly armed (with pistols, AK-47's, a few grenades, and several improvised, plastique IED's, ALL of which fit in their common day-tripper backpacks) teenage and slightly older males, with only three months of intensive brainwashing, er, "training", at the hands of "some people" with a grudge against their more prosperous neighbors, many of the SAME religious belief system, was all it took to bring Mumbai, a city of almost 21 MILLION souls, to a complete standstill, and, almost to its knees.

Something indeed to ponder these days, as the "open border' devotees decry ANY control of who is allowed to enter a country.

Trained, handled, and remotely egged on via cell phone from neighboring Pakistan, these 10 nondescript persons, calmly hijacked a fishing trawler, killed the crew, forced the captain to smuggle them to Mumbai, then after slitting his throat, took dingy's ashore, then hailed five taxis in teams of two, and dispersed to their targets, leaving bombs behind in the hired cars, set to detonate an hour later.

They calmly approached a popular Bar, a Woman's Hospital, a hotel, and the train station, smiling and perusing the tourist merchandise, before they calmly removed their packs, tossed grenades into the premises for maximum initial shock, then methodically and indiscriminately opened fire on anyone still alive, or trying to escape the carnage.

This had the desired effect of instilling absolute panic, and, the crowd predictably herded toward the nearest place of perceived refuge, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, which, due to it being THE place where the rich, and well connected tended to stay when in Mumbai, had good security, and would normally have been difficult for "locals"to simply stroll into for a look around. But upon seeing the dire straits, and panic of the crowd, management threw open the doors to provide much needed refuge....., and unfortunately, easy access for the terrorists, who had blended in with the crowd.

Once inside, they resumed their demonic task, randomly opening fire, racking up as large a body count as they could, them going from floor to floor, room to room, looking for "high value" hostages, setting fires, giving no quarter to to any perceived shared ethnicity or belief's while their handlers gleefully listened in via speaker phone, and watching the carnage on live news channels.

It is at times gut wrenching to watch, both the coldness by which the killers carried out their tasks, the heartlessness of their Pakistani handlers as they instruct them to shoot women and children in the head and to keep their phones on so they can hear their pleas, as their brains explode from their skulls, all the while exhorting the perpetrators that, "they will be in heaven soon", and that "god" is well pleased with them".

This would be horrific enough as a fictional work, but, sadly, it is indeed based on true events, but, as a result, some of the prominent characters are "composites" of different people, and incidents are compressed and combined for cinematic effect. This IMO was necessary, as the true stories of courage and bravery amongst both the Staff and hotel guests were IMO compelling enough in their own right.

One must also never forget that there were other terrorist teams unleashed that night, an, while the movie doesn't cover all of them in depth, it DOES, lend some time to the train station attack, and subsequent hijacking of a police van, in which THREE prominent police officials were gunned down and killed, which, MAY have contributed to the chaos and lack of coordination on the part of the Mumbai police, as well as their overall lack of equipment (bolt action rifles,revolvers, and one or two Glocks) and training.

But, as unprepared as they were to face multiple attacks in different locations, at the same time, there WERE those who showed GREAT courage, running TOWARD the danger, even though they were outgunned and over-matched. At one point, two policeman, seeing that the terrorists were about to breech a hiding place with 100 or more guests inside, ask each other how many bullets each has left, and, although the answer was TWELVE between them, the confronted the killers, and though wounded, prevented the deaths of those hidden behind the locked doors.

Overall, the cast did a fine job, with kudos, to Dev Patel for his understated performance, proving one doesn't have to have to look like an action hero with bulging muscles to display true courage and fortitude. Also Anupam Kher, portraying ACTUAL Taj Mahal Palace Head Chef Hermant Oberoi, who, it appears, could certainly teach Gordon Ramsay, a thing or two about staff treatment, and haute cuisine.

Well worth the watch, but then, look up a documentary on the attacks (there are several) and then, as Paul Harvey used to intone, "you'll know the REST of the story"....