Review: An intense and powerful movie, but often a very difficult watch.
With a movie based on such a tragic and terrifying true story, one shouldn't go into this film excepting a fun action movie. There is action here, but the action is uncomfortably real. In fact most of the film is uncomfortably real. The real life horrors are presented in a very realistic and very intense way. Nothing about the incident is sugar coated or played down, but instead there for us to see. What makes this movie all the more terrifying is that we all know this can happen anywhere, not just at this one hotel. By the grace of God we could have been one of these people. The sheer terror in thinking about this can easily make one afraid to even go out in to the outside world. The more one thinks about that the scarier this movie is and the harder it is to watch.
This is not to say that this movie is all about the evil that can lurk in the human heart. It is also about the pure selfless heroism and how that can exist in any of us. We do not have to be a fearless action star to be a hero in the face of evil. The hotel staff's efforts to protect their guests and help in spite of the horrors happening is inspiring. We see that as well as great evil the human heart has the capacity to do great good. The fact that these are not action heroes but rather cooks and waiters make this statement all the more powerful. With all the horrible evil, the selfless heroism is truly what this movie is about. Even in times of pure evil, the light of human caring is able to shine through and make itself known.
This movie has a large amount of characters. Normally this would spell disaster for a film. Shockingly it is managed very well here. The movie never seems too focused on any one character. Each of the characters is given enough time for there story arc to play out without feeling rushed or feel like it is distracting from the other characters' stories. It is true that some of the characters are more interesting than others. Some definitely feel more fleshed while others feel more cliché. Still each characters' story feels like it belongs in and contributes to this movie and that is no small feat.
This movie will definitely be too intense for many and it is not even an easy watch for those who can handle it. However it is an excellent movie which packs an incredible punch.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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