Hotel Mumbai is an account of the siege of the Taj hotel in 2008, when 10 terrorists launched simultaneous attacks on high-profile targets in India's biggest city. Four gunmen invaded the fabulously luxurious hotel. Dev Patel plays a Sikh waiter called Arjun. On the fateful day, Arjun is nearly sacked from his job. Fortunately, for the people his cool head and determination will help save over the course of the next three days, he isn't.
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The Taj's grandeur was a source of pride: it was the first building in Mumbai to be wired for electricity, played host to rock stars and politicians. In a line taken from the real attackers' recorded conversations with their command base, one describes it as paradise. "That for me is mind-blowing, you know," says Patel. "That idea that a place at the Taj was an ideal and what the attack meant to Indians."
Arjun is a composite of the imaginary and several real people. "It was a conscious decision from the start," says the film's director Australian Anthony Maras.