“ Hotel Mumbai”

The  most arresting thing about the film “Hotel Mumbai” is that the actual cell phone calls made by the terrorist mastermind are used verbatim. To hear the psychological ploys used in this kind of brainwashing enlightens us. We hear “ You feel strong. You feel calm. Paradise awaits you, ” and we are chilled. By the time we see twelve or more young zealots with backpacks jump from a small rowboat like vessel, we are ready for the enactment of true events. “ Remember your training. The whole world is watching”, echoes and appalls.

While it feels rather sacrilegious watching a true disaster enfold, the suspense/entertainment factor is quickly overridden by the Indian staff’s heroics in putting their guests’ lives first. The body count is documented at one-hundred and seventy-four souls. Over half are  staff members trying to shepherd their guests to safety.

One of the most harrowing scenes was of young security women at first ordered to call a room and lie that help was on the way. Once the  terrorists rapid fire could be heard, the guards refused to call another room; and they are sacrificed to the cause.

The terrorists are shown as pawns. Their cell phones are billeted with propaganda.” Look at what they have stolen from you, from your grandfathers. Remember your training.” Likewise, the hotel staff is humanized. Dev Patel is a Sikh waiter with an infant daughter and a pregnant wife, whose sister does not show up to babysit. Rushed to change plans, he forgets his polished shoes and is almost dismissed from his shift when he shows up in socks and sandals. Various other hotel staff members are introduced , and we begin to admire the leadership of the head chef, Hermant Oderoi. Anupam Kher of the medical television series “ New Amsterdam” plays Oderoi. Some actual footage of the 2008 terrorist attack is used.

The Hotel Mumbai guests are introduced like in most disaster films. Their major personality strengths and flaws are highlighted. Armie Hammer and Nazanin Boniadi are the married couple bringing their infant and amah to the luxury hotel. They are greeted with leis and invocations of “namaste” as they settle into perfectly regulated bath water temperatures and floating flower petals. The other world luxury of champagne and white gloves is juxtaposed against the young terrorists seeing a flush toilet for the first time. The disparity of creature comforts is starkly made.

The suspense is  relentless. Who will survive and who will die ? What would we do in similar circumstances ? One no-no everyone in the theatre would agree on would be the unpreparedness of the amah, or nanny. Tilda Cobham-Hervey plays Sally. She has no pacifier or bottle and never thinks just to open her blouse as a means of quieting a baby.

Anthony Maras is the debut director of this Australian-Indian-U.S. film. It is violent and has a video-game quality that is alarming. The random killing is loud and then punctuated by eerie silence.

All the while we are reminded that “ the guest is God”. Whip cream is piped on plates as we hear “none deserve Allah’ s mercy.” Over 1,000 guests and 500 staff members are trapped and under siege. The Indian Special Forces are all in New Delhi hours away. One jihadist calls  home to tell his father and sister that he loves them. A hostage recalls a saying to quash fear: “ Don’t be afraid to jump, you just may fly.”

Six hours of hide and seek, grenade throwing, fires and explosions, and media intrusions leave viewers exhausted. The final Muslim prayer said by the grief-stricken Zahara will stay with you, and so will the mastermind’s  “Be brave m my lions”. Not for the faint of heart.

“The Wedding Guest”

The worse movie of the year happens to be an Indian “Bonnie and Clyde”. Dev Patel’s character is still connected to a hotel, but don’t see this latest hook-up if you are looking for his warmth and charm.

The screenplay, if one can call it that, is horrendous. Michael Winterbottom as both script writer and director is to blame. His comedy/drama “ The Trip To Italy” ( 2014) was so much more satisfying with its sharp editing and with its characters, who were worth caring about. Winterbottom should stick to lighter fare. Noir is hard to do. Love of money is just too shallow as an impetus to fuel this duo. A back story may have helped, but as written, this story is an effort to watch.

Both Jay ( Dev Patel) and Samira ( Radhika Apte) are liars, and they are snake-like in their contortions to steal and kill for pure mercenary ends. There is no ideology here, just pathological self-interest in beating the game. There is some smarts needed to parlay four passports, plan for car exchanges, and border crossings; but, we have seen this kind of underground network many times before. International sim-cards and throw away cell phones have lost their cool.

Patel is good at giving orders: “ You stay here.” “ Put your hair up”.  A sub-theme may be stretched out to include women as their own agents, yet who wishes to be like this creepy, bold planning  male. Samira has her own plan to pocket her former fiance’s family gemstones. Patel’s character just wants a cut. He seems romantically inclined to a girl more despicable than he is. Her first boyfriend side kick is shot by Jay, and Samira helps drag the corpse off the road. She watches Jay torch the body without shedding a tear. Later,  Samira’s swim in a hotel pool is stupidly set to add something sexy to the screen. The soundtrack is cloying and poorly done.

If India is a perfect place to get lost in, the UK is not the place to educate the masses in morals. These are British educated, bad people who are impossible to  like. One scene that is particularly off-putting has Jay, who lies that his real name is Joseph, tries to scare Samira at a  hideaway beach house. He picks up a rock and jabs it toward her as if a live toad would scare her, or that juvenile antics could be equated with this character.  This one glimpse of silliness is the Dev Patel of previous better films, it does not jive with Jay, and is never seen again.

The ending has Jay calling Samira’s name after she has long escaped with half his money and half the jewels. His cell rings and she says that she will miss him. Viewers won’t miss either one.

“Lion”

Though this film cries for editing, a five-year-old lost in the streets of Calcutta is quite a harrowing adventure to view. The fact that it is a true story makes each scene all the more mesmerizing. Based on the memoir “A Long Way Home”, we are carried across two continents, India and Australia, in following the life path of our lost urchin.

Divided into two parts, “Lion” focuses on the wet-eyed Indian pre-schooler and the twenty-year-old Australian college student in meshing the past with the future. Dev Patel is Saroo, as soulfully lost as his younger self  (played hauntingly by Sunny Pawar)  is adrift and forsaken. Screenwriter Luke Davies adapts Saroo Brierley’s story of his adoption and his search for his biological family with just enough tension and circumstance. The early scenes are riveting and dream-like at the same time. A five-year-olds’ awareness of danger and the balance of wanting to please is astoundingly captured. That this little boy was not  is made more sobering with the final screen numbers: over eighty thousand children go missing every year in India.

Director Garth Davis draws out the best in his actors. Sunny Pawar is mesmerizing. His “I can lift anything” is all boy. Dev Patel as college student, both depressed and in love, draws memories. His friendships are lovely, his respect for past and present made clear and celebrated. It is Guddu (Abhisek Bharate) who will  remain in this viewer’s mind. How does a teenager forgive himself for botched responsibility? Or did he not return to his brother’s bench because he was killed by a train that very night ?  “Lion” will send filmgoers to the page, like so many good films have done.

Nicole Kidman is so self-possessed as Susan Brierley, Saroo’s adoptive mother, that we forget her stardom. Likewise, David Wenham  loses himself in his part as adoptive father. The reality they create as idealistic nurturers is painfully beautiful. Their second adopted son, Mantosh (Kesha Jadhav), helps underscore the many pitfalls  damaged children have in adjusting to familiar life. Kidman’s motherly tears of joy and of anguish are high performance art.

The cinematography of the vast beauty of India is seen in overhead, aerial shots. Google maps are given some practical play. Street scenes of threatening dogs, cardboard pallets, and gangs of homeless children running from guards, or worse, temper the picture. My favorite scene was of the kind man eating in the restaurant window. Saroo sits on the curb and mimics his soup spoon rising and falling. Lovely camera work captures  a social worker in interview, a crowded orphanage, candles and prayers to Krishna, and the prize of an apple core. Monsoon rains under a bridge and the opening of a refrigerator in Australia catch strong emotions. Flashbacks are smoothly done by association. Memory is all. When we hear the words, “Come with me”, we cheer with the village. This Aussie film is up-lifting and worth our privileged time.

 

 

 

 

“The Man Who Knew Infinity”

“The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

On occasion when I am not particularly looking forward to a sequel,I will let a few weeks pass and let others see it first. I remember enjoying the 2012 “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel For The Elderly and The Beautiful” all the while knowing that the film was capitalizing on my age group and beyond. The characters were well drawn and the pace was delightful in its introductions and comminglings. Friends varied in their feelings for “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” 2015. Three friends raved ,two did not like it and one actually reviewed it with a theater worker’s comment, “a Marvel action film for senior citizens”. I saw it with my husband this afternoon because I had to see for myself,and it was a rainy Monday. We both felt the sequel fell short of our low expectations.

Three years is a long time to remember the circumstances of all the varied players.I can’t imagine seeing the sequel without having seen the original. I will flatly state don’t try it. You are immediately thrown into a California scene where Maggie Smith and Dev Patel are in a convertible driving down Route 66. They magically end up in San Diego, not in L.A. The fast-talking Sonny (Dev Patel) is seeking financing for his second hotel. We guess that Muriel Donlevy (Maggie Smith) is brought along for her “economy of expression”. We later learn her part in the second enterprise is more critically important.

After suffering through some weak lines about weak tea,we are back in India at the local ex-pat. club learning that the boarders all have part-time jobs be it watering down the wine,guiding tours badly,or buying pashminas and fabric for a retail company. The hotel is home of the “happy hunters”, many looking for sex and companionship. Madge(Celia Imrie)has one of the worst lines. On seeing Guy Chambers (Richard Gere)register, she yelps “Lordy,Lordy, have mercy on my ovaries”.

Other banalities ensue. “It takes teamwork to make a dream work” and “We can still shake it,you know”. “Good things don’t come on their own,one must make them.” “Water doesn’t flow until you turn on the tap” and “No one is checking out until the ultimate ‘check-out'” are bromides less than wise.Snarky comments like,”what a busy little pensioner bee” and questions like,”When was your last check-up?” are the funniest.

There are too many mini-vignettes to enumerate besides a major engagement party and a wedding. Instead of the end of things and the beginning of things, we see a continuation of the same misunderstandings and befuddlements. Should we have more respect for our elders? Well, if they deserve it. Too many of this lot are still into scheming,bartering,cheating and insinuating. Don’t expect much wisdom here. These guys are still trying to figure life out, but for one exception. The wisest,Muriel, (Maggie Smith) gets the voice overs and the right to call Sonny a self-pitying mess-up.

I loved the dancing and the Indian music and ambiance. Tina Desai was beautiful as Sunaina,the bride. I hated the “novelist” hoax with the weakest lines I have ever heard Richard Gere deliver.Dev Patel reminded my husband and me of Ray Romano in his goofiness. I missed Tom Wilkerson and thought Bill Nighy and Judi Dench mis-matched. Whether the “Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” is “franchised or foot-noted” better not be up to me for director John Madden’s sake.