Hotel Mumbai  ★★★½

TALK about bad timing.

The Australian drama Hotel Mumbai, about the 2008 terrorist attacks, was scheduled for release on a day that ended up in the same week as the Christchurch massacre.

In NZ the distributors had the sense to delay the release by a fortnight, but it went ahead in Australia.

Even I wasn’t keen at the time so gave it a wide berth until now, a couple of months later.

I also haven’t been Robinson Crusoe in that regard; the film cost $16 million and has so far earned only $17 million world-wide.

It’s a good film, very well directed and acted, with some incredibly tense sequences.

But it also remains a problematic one by virtue of its approach to the subject matter.

The series of attacks across 12 sites in Mumbai, India, were committed by 10 Islamic terrorists from neighbouring Pakistan.

At the end of the carnage, which lasted four days, 174 people had died and more than 300 had been injured.

After arriving together by boat, the terrorists split into pairs and attacked seperate sites before re-converging for a final assault on the Taj Mahal Palace, a five-star hotel popular with foreign visitors.

The hotel was populated at the time by 1,000 guests and 500 employees, many of whom risked their lives in service of the hotel’s mantra ‘The Guest is God’.

It’s remarkable that the terrorists were left unchallenged for so long, with the country’s Special Forces based hours away in Delhi.

The story focuses on some of the guests, including a rich Muslim woman, her husband and their child and nanny, an arrogant, mysterious Russian and two backpackers; as well as members of the kitchen and wait staff.

Included in the cast are Dev Patel as an heroic waiter, veteran Anupam Kher as the head chef and Nazanin Boniadi, Armie Hammer and Jason Isaacs as guests.

The main problem is the approach adopted by Anthony Maras who wrote, edited, produced and directed the film.

There is emotional investment in the plight of the victims, but no insight at all into why the attacks are occurring.

Apart from one scene late in the film, Maras’ terrorists are just cardboard cut-outs who reveal nothing of their opinions or backgrounds.

Obviously this is a calculated decision, but it won’t help attract audiences to what is otherwise a very well made film.