Hotel Mumbai
Icon Film Distribution | Release Date: March 22, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
14
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedMar 26, 2019
Unsparing in its depiction of violence and carnage, the movie meets an even greater challenge showing the myriad of ways people from every class, culture and creed found the courage and strength to unite and join forces in order to survive. Read full review
90
Film ThreatAndy HowellSep 12, 2018
No amount of words that can convey the sense of the film, because it is such a gut-punch of emotion. Read full review
83
Original-CinLiam LaceyMar 28, 2019
The craft of the re-enactment is more impressive than the script, which defaults to hackneyed dramatic moments, reminiscent of a generic disaster film, with its stock upstairs-downstairs tropes, young lovers, the cynic-turned-hero, and the dutiful subalterns showing courage above their pay grade. Read full review
80
The GuardianKatie GohSep 12, 2018
Hotel Mumbai is an excellent, white-knuckle thriller – and an unlikely crowd-pleaser. Read full review
80
Screen DailySarah WardSep 12, 2018
Writer/director Anthony Maras largely sticks to the dramatisation playbook, but does so in an effective, affecting and empathetic fashion. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleDanielle WhiteMar 27, 2019
The finished product is two hours of fist-clenching action, suddenly violent and steadily horrifying. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 2, 2019
What Collee and Maras and their cast get across most clearly is the utter helplessness and hopelessness of the victims. Again, this isn’t “Die Hard.” Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 28, 2019
A chilling and valuable reminder of acts of madness, and acts of heroism, that should never be forgotten. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Chandler LevackMar 28, 2019
Filmmaker Anthony Maras has made a chilling thriller, using extreme violence and high-wire tension to impressive effect, but it lacks deeper characterization. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshMar 28, 2019
Visceral and suspenseful, Hotel Mumbai is also deeply humane and moving, anchored by searing performances from Patel, Kher, Boniadi and Hammer. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMar 28, 2019
It’s a horrifying tale, and Maras, a Greek-Australian filmmaker, does not shy away from showing the carnage. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 26, 2019
The callousness with which the terrorists operate is palpable and conveyed with a degree of verisimilitude that borders on sadism. Hotel Mumbai is a clockwork thriller, but man, is it hard to watch. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 12, 2018
What redeems Hotel Mumbai from morbid opportunism is that, in all but its slickest and most Hollywood moments, the thrills of Maras’ heart-wrenching re-enactment are never an end unto themselves. Read full review
72
Paste MagazineOktay Ege Kozak Apr 1, 2019
Hotel Mumbai may not be a perfect example of its genre, but its restraint from ideological grandstanding and a top-notch technical control of tone make it worthy of a watch. Read full review
70
TheWrapRobert AbeleMar 22, 2019
Maybe the best thing I can say about Hotel Mumbai is that I kept waiting for it to become “Die Hard,” and it thankfully never did. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 21, 2019
A short-film director making his feature debut, Maras has settled on a strategy that combines harrowing re-creations with largely conventional character development to good effect. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonMar 28, 2019
Hotel Mumbai sometimes surrenders to melodrama and action-genre imperatives, and it mixes actual people like Oberoi with fictional composites in a way that strays from the stringent just-the-facts discipline of a docudrama like United 93. But there is value, too, in its subjective approach. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoMar 27, 2019
Maras and his cast craft such a chilling, narratively grueling dramatization of the episode — chaos worsened by the lack of tactical response forces in Mumbai — it’s tough to view quietly-played everyman heroics as the story’s takeaway. These striving unfortunates are just too hopelessly, fatally overmatched for that. Audiences are likelier to leave horrified or, at best, numb. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyMar 22, 2019
I must admit: this skilled, historical action film was one of the toughest, most disquieting sits I can remember in a while — tougher than Paul Greengrass’ “July 22” and on par with the same filmmaker’s masterful “United 93.” Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerSep 23, 2019
Hotel Mumbai benefits from strong filmmaking and an unflinching gaze, yet it lacks dimensions, both in its characters and take on its subject matter. Still, it’s a punchy, promising debut. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 21, 2019
As a thriller it’s efficient, if formulaic, and technically proficient, if undistinguished. Read full review
60
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 21, 2019
Aussie director Anthony Maras, in his feature debut, brings a Hitchcockian feel for suspense and a documentarian’s eye for detail to the brutal events that transpired over three days in November 2008 when the Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba initiated an attack on the city of Mumbai. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 18, 2019
Is it any surprise that this disturbing brand of cinema was triggered by 9/11, a catastrophe that, despite the valor it called forth, and the wars that ensued, lies beyond redemption and revenge? Or that Hotel Mumbai, a well-staged model of the form, should leave you feeling fidgety and low? You can admire a film, reel at the horrors it unfolds, and still wind up asking yourself, helplessly, what it was all for. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerSep 12, 2018
The film is both gripping in its execution — although a two-hours-plus running time feels a bit stretched — and totally bland in what it’s trying to say, with characters who don’t really stand out onscreen. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 12, 2018
Sitting through the harrowing events again nearly a decade later could hardly be described as entertainment, and the film plays to many of the same unseemly impulses that make disaster movies so compelling, exploiting the tragedy of the situation for spectacle’s sake. Read full review
58
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 18, 2018
There’s a line for an audience between conveying the true horror of what occurred and being excessive and Maras barely avoids the latter. Read full review
58
The Film StageBedatri D. ChoudhurySep 14, 2018
Hotel Mumbai is a great crowd pleaser but with a dangerously myopic narrative that, even with its flaws, serves a fitting tribute to the resilience of the people who lived and died through the terror attacks of 2008, but it definitely needs an audience which doesn’t believe everything it sees. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoMar 27, 2019
Too much of what we see feels contrived and ham-handed. Read full review
50
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergMar 21, 2019
It reduces the randomness of real-life bloodshed to the slick thrills of a popcorn movie. And after the mosque attacks in Christchurch, which led the film’s distributor in New Zealand to suspend the movie’s release there, its savagery is especially difficult to take. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloMar 20, 2019
If the thought of seeing a lot of people get murdered with automatic weapons at close range makes you queasy right now, Hotel Mumbai is not a film you want to go anywhere near. Few slasher movies have such a high, graphic body count. Read full review
40
The GuardianMike McCahillOct 3, 2019
Art born of outrage has to be more rigorous – and we might also contemplate what merit there is in guaranteeing prospective terrorists a filmed account of their misdeeds. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Simran HansOct 3, 2019
There is something queasy about mining such fresh real-life trauma for popcorn entertainment. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghMar 27, 2019
Movie-release schedules are set by studios months in advance, and many are the movie that had the misfortune to open at an inopportune time. But Hotel Mumbai is responsible for myriad other poor creative decisions that make a spectacle of misery. Read full review
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