This is a very hard movie for me to review.  It is definitely well-made and tries to stick to the facts as much as possible.  However, by the time the movie was over, I felt depressed and hopeless.  A movie that tells us a tragic story about horrible events usually tries to  lift us up in some way and give us hope for the future.  I did not walk away from this movie with that kind of feeling at all.  “Hotel Mombai” tells the story of a series of terrorist attackes that rocked the city of Mombai in 2008 and left over 178 people killed and many more injured.  Several public buildings and areas were targeted, but the movie concentrates on the seige of the Taj Mahal Hotel.  Dev Patel  plays one of the luxurious hotel’s waiters who misses out on a lucritive (but eventually deadly) plum job because on his way to work he accidentally dropped a shoe  and was not properly attired (this hotel is very much the upper class hotel usually seen in British period pieces).  I usually love Dev Patel, but he really didn’t have a lot to do other than run and hide while trying to guide the guests.  Other actors you might recognize are Armie Hammer as the husband of a wealthy socialite and Jason isaacs as a retired Russion Special Forces agent.  Their characters didn’t have much to do than get killed, and there was no opportunity to develop them in a way that you are involved in them. The movie is at its best showing the devestation, terror and bloodshed the terrorists inflict on their innocent victims, and their motivation-religious fanaticism inspired by a shadowy Pakistani leader known as “Brother Bull.”  As usual, men like him avoid any actual involvement on their own.  They send the desparate young men, fired by misplaced passionate anger and religious fanaticsim  directed at the ones they think are responsible for their lot in life.  It’s really not anything new for these events.  This movie definitely earns its R rating as the violence looks very real and it seems overenthusiastic, if that is the word, in showing the dying, and the heartless, religion driven hatred and spite of the perpetrators.  I had to avert my eyes many times.  The movie did include some of the heroics, especially by the hotel staff, many of whom risked their lives to help the guests and fullfill their mantra, “Guest is god.” It clearly depicts a government, local or national, clearly unprepared and utterly inefficient in responding to the crisis.  I really wanted to see more of the positive stories  and less of the blood and body parts.  In fact, I wouldn’t recommend this movie to you if you are not a fan of realistic violence.  In the wolrd today, with these kinds of attacks frequently in the news, this movie was a little too real for me.