Parents' Guide to

Hotel Mumbai

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Uneasy, brutally violent mix of thriller, real-life tragedy.

Movie R 2019 123 minutes
Hotel Mumbai Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 15+

Based on 5 parent reviews

age 12+

Good, but violent

If you want to teach your teen, this would be a great movie! Just make sure they are mature enough!

This title has:

Too much violence
age 12+

Very Violent

It's very violent and worrying. Not for kids and it's filled with guns and blood. It's very disturbing and not for sensitive people. They kill people a lot in this movie.

This title has:

Too much violence

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5):
Kids say (5):

Based on horrific real-life events, this thriller is skillfully made, but its use of creaky clichés and wrongheaded exploitation feels iffy at best and objectionable at worst. Making his feature debut, co-writer/director Anthony Maras clearly wants to pay tribute to those who risked their lives that day to help others, and Hotel Mumbai includes the expected epilogue with footage of the real-life survivors heroically returning to work and refusing to be terrorized. That aside, the rest of the movie has an uneasy feeling. While watching Hammer's character sneak around the opulent hallways, trying to avoid gunfire, it's easy to recall similar, popcorn-munching, shaky-cam thrillers and, at the same time, difficult to forget the actual tragedy that this situation is based on.

It's a troubling mix. Maras includes such devices as Patel's ill-fitting shoes (echoing Die Hard's barefoot hero), while failing to use them for anything in particular. Mini-stories within the larger narrative -- such as an older, white, racist lady who starts to accuse anyone with brown skin of being a terrorist -- are intended to ramp up the tension but end up feeling tacked on, as if they were mini-lessons the audience must learn. Plus, by attempting to focus on a wide variety of characters, Maras winds up exploring none of them thoroughly, and each situation becomes a wince-inducing waiting game, sickly anticipating the next explosion or noisy burst of gunfire. The wait, all 123 minutes of it, is unforgivably long, and the payoff isn't worth the effort.

Movie Details

  • In theaters: March 22, 2019
  • On DVD or streaming: June 18, 2019
  • Cast: Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi
  • Director: Anthony Maras
  • Inclusion Information: Middle Eastern/North African actors
  • Studio: Bleecker Street
  • Genre: Thriller
  • Run time: 123 minutes
  • MPAA rating: R
  • MPAA explanation: disturbing violence throughout, bloody images, and language
  • Last updated: October 14, 2022

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