The Aviator and Hotel Mumbai are survival narratives headlined by global stars (of different generations) stretching the parameters of their screen personas. The former is a fictional two-hander set in 1928 about a mismatched duo whose aeroplane crash lands in rugged American wilderness; the latter is an ensemble drama-thriller set 80 years later based on real events – the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks – and depicts guests and staff fighting to survive at a luxury hotel under siege. Both features are directed by Australian filmmakers; the latter, though set in Mumbai, was filmed partly in Adelaide and is an Australian co-production involving Screen Australia, Screen West, and the South Australian Film Corporation.
The Aviator (1985)
Director: George T. Miller
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Rosanna Arquette, Jack Warden, Sam Wanamaker
The Aviator (not to be confused with the Martin Scorsese Howard Hughes biopic of the same name) stars Christopher Reeve as pilot Edgar Anscombe, withdrawn and disgruntled following an accident that led to a student’s death a decade prior. While delivering air mail, Anscombe is saddled with Tillie (Rosanna Arquette), a gallivant whose father is sending her cross-country to her aunt’s for reform. When the plane crashed in the wilderness, Anscombe and Tillie are forced to contend with each other, the elements, and four-legged ravenous locals.
Director George T. Miller (not to be confused with the Mad Max auteur of the same name) helmed The Aviator following his success with 1982’s The Man from Snowy River, and this pair of films (along with his work on the 1980 miniseries The Last Outlaw and 1985 miniseries Anzacs) suggested a career as a director of pedigree period adventure/drama. Two years later, he helmed the broad and vulgar Les Patterson Saves the World, thoroughly confounding those expectations (though certainly continuing an exploration of national archetypes). While Miller ultimately forged a journeyman path, he’s a solid craftsman, and though subject to scorn on release and largely forgotten, there’s plenty to appreciate about his first American sojourn with The Aviator.
Released one year before Top Gun raised the bar on aerial photography, the aerial work here is impressive; Christopher Reeve himself did most of the flying, and this combined with location shooting – albeit in Yugoslavia rather than the American northwest – gives the film a tangible authenticity. My appreciation of Reeve is already well-documented, and here he effectively plays against the innate charm that made him so likeable as Superman, portraying as a cold, coarse workhorse, albeit eventually warming to his cargo. Arquette is a very contemporary actress and doesn’t blend organically into the period setting, but that works in her favour as a character consistently out of joint with her surrounds, like a Breakfast Club spin on Katherine Hepburn.
The Aviator too
was out of joint with its surrounds on original release, underwhelming against
the cutting edge entertainment of 1985, and feeling like a stale and musty
imitation of its Golden Age predecessors, then still in heavy rotation on
television and newly rolling out on VHS. Watching the film today, with those
Golden Age predecessors firmly out of rotation and mainstream fare
predominantly digital and otherworldly, it’s a fairly enjoyable if stolid
throwback.
Hotel Mumbai (2018)
Director: Anthony Maras
Starring: Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Jason Isaacs, Nazanin Boniadi, Tilda Cobham-Hervey
In November 2008, a series of terror attacks unfolded around Mumbai. Hotel Mumbai dramatises the events that occurred at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, following several character and plot threads including a waiter (Dev Patel) with a heavily pregnant wife, a wealthy couple (Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi) with an infant and nanny (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), a dissolute former military man (Jason Isaacs), and the terrorists themselves as they patrol the floors of the hotel.
Hotel Mumbai is the feature debut of director Anthony Maras – who previously helmed several shorts and produced 2009’s Last Ride – also serving as a producer, co-writer with the talented John Collee (Master and Commander), and co-editor. As feature debuts go, Hotel Mumbai is technically proficient and undeniably impactful. Indeed, in light of recent international events, the film was particularly intense viewing – most chilling was the mundanity and detachment with which the perpetrators dispatched civilians – and I waivered on seeing it through. This wavering is testament to the film’s effectiveness, as is the fact I ultimately saw it through, albeit feeling fairly pummelled by the end.
Watching Hotel Mumbai on the heels of The Aviator was a curious experience. It is a better-made film, holistically speaking, than The Aviator, and commands greater attention throughout its running time, but The Aviator has tonal variety – action, comedy, tentative romance – that invites repeat viewing. In contrast, Hotel Mumbai is singular in its tone, sustaining and racketing tension over the course of its running time. In this respect, it is similar to the likes of Black Hawk Down, Captain Phillips, Gravity: accomplished films which are gripping viewing but, for this viewer at least, are not built for repeat business. As a hostage drama, it is very much an anti-Die Hard; indeed, the hero is forced to wear uncomfortable ill-fitting shoes for the duration of the running time, which is both a curious counterpoint to that milestone action film and a metaphor for the unlikely role thrust upon Patel’s Arjun.
Where films like The Impossible – which depicts the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami’s devastation of Khao Lak, Thailand – are criticised for focusing on the narratives of privileged white citizens, the scope of Hotel Mumbai is more multicultural, encapsulating different ethnicities and classes. But as an ensemble juggling multiple storylines, there are some oversights. Spoiler warning: One plot thread that comes to mind concerns an Australian couple, played by Angus McLaren and Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who make their way to the Taj Hotel following a neighbouring attack (it is in the traffic from this attack that the terrorists inconspicuously sneak in). While I know Bordizzo’s character’s unhappy fate, I cannot recall the fate of McLaren’s character, or how he responds to her execution, suggesting this was either not dealt with onscreen or, if it was, dealt with only cursorily. The most compelling plot thread concerns Dev Patel’s character, in part due to the actor’s own quiet gravitas. Like Reeve in The Aviator, Patel is a star in the process of tweaking his persona, adding reluctant hero to his gallery of roles and playing the part with vulnerability and intelligence.
As disparate films produced three decades apart that have been forcibly cornered – for the first and likely last time – into the same review, The Aviator and Hotel Mumbai, commonalities aside, are apples and oranges. Criticism is subjective, despite overtures to objectivity, and I’ll concede that what I like about The Aviator – as a long-time Christopher Reeve fan, a sucker for adventure films, and someone who appreciates both celluloid tactility and tonal variety – and don't like about Hotel Mumbai – its lack of tonal variety – are very subjective. However, what I dislike about The Aviator – that much of it is hokum – and like about Hotel Mumbai – its gripping storytelling and excellent craft – are more generalisable. Ultimately, like apples and oranges, this odd couple offers different nutrients for different seasons.