Movie reviews: Hotel Mumbai, Long Shot
HOTEL MUMBAI (M18)
This harrowing biographical thriller re-enacts the 2008 siege of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel by a group of terrorists in Mumbai, India, with breathless intensity.
We check in to Hotel Mumbai via several points of view: The dedicated hotel staff - including a kindly waiter played by Dev Patel - who risk their lives to protect their guests; a wealthy couple (Armie Hammer and Nazanin Boniadi) desperate to survive and be reunited with their baby; and even the armed extremists.
The way the multiple killings are carried out are so brutal, senseless and chilling, the audience will feel assaulted too, as the rage and indignation builds up in you.
It is unclear how many of the individual stories depicted are fictional, but the film does manage to toe the line between sensitivity and exploitation.
Hotel Mumbai grips you from start to finish, but the real horror is leaving the theatre knowing that such madness and massacre is not confined to the big screen and is far from over.- JEANMARIE TAN - 3.5 Ticks
LONG SHOT (M18)
The idea of Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen kissing, falling in love and having sex can only be the figment of some male writer's fantasy.
But both stars, who co-produced this raunchy romcom, actually made it happen.
Disbelief can only be suspended for so long if the actors' chemistry is off the charts. Fortunately, Theron and Rogen did their homework.
She plays the US secretary of state and all-round alpha female, while Rogen's political journalist is essentially a rehash of all his annoying man-child roles. The two have nothing in common except a childhood link, but deep down they are lonely individuals yearning for a lasting connection.
Long Shot's best laughs come from their fish-out-of-water experiences when navigating each other's worlds, while its heart springs from an endearing unlikely romance set to Roxette's It Must Have Been Love that eventually brings out their best qualities.
The optics of a Theron-Rogen pairing may not be good in the beginning, but by the time we reach the final scenes, they just look right together. - JEANMARIE TAN - 3.5 Ticks
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