The
grim truth is no matter how much security agencies prepare, a Mumbai-style
terrorist attack will still cause plenty of death and destruction. As a case in
point, French law enforcement reacted to the November 2015 attacks with near tactical
perfection, but it was still a horrific tragedy. In contrast, Mumbai authorities
were caught flat-footed, resulting in four agonizing days of terror. The savage
2008 terrorist campaign is dramatized from the perspective of the besieged guests
of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in screenwriter-director Liam Worthington’s One Less God (trailer here), which had its
world premiere at the 2017 Dances with Films.
The
terrorists were indeed Muslims—a fact Turkish tourist Selim would prefer to
ignore. He also finds his more modern-thinking sister Eda to be an embarrassing
nuisance. Thanks to her they were separated from their mother when the attacks
started. They take refuge in the room of a French journalist, but his stubborn
refusal to fully recognize the precariousness of their position leads to
tension and quarreling.
Eventually,
they join up with another group of ragtag survivors, including Sean the Irish
tourist, the gut-shot elderly woman he has been caring for, and an Israeli rock
star and his wife. By this time, even Selim starts to grasp the gravity of
their situation. A few doors down, Atiya’s grandfather understands only too
well the savagery unfolding around them, but he tries to shield her from the
fear and protect her from the danger as best he can.
Die Hard-like films are
certainly fun, but OLG makes it clear
how far-fetched such confined-space action movies really are. For the Taj Mahal
survivors, waiting out the terrorists was obviously their best and really only
option. This is just an unrelentingly tense and emotionally devastating film
that portrays the realities of terrorism in no uncertain terms.
Worthington
also finds the right characterization balance that has bedeviled 9-11 films. He
makes the innocent victims readily identifiable, but also down-to-earth and
believably human, rather than saintly. On the other hand, the terrorists are
stone cold extremists, for whom no excuses are made. Yet, he also denies them
super-human status, depicting all their human warts—including for one
terrorist, a persistent case of diarrhea.
In
his big screen debut, Joseph Mahler Taylor might just breakout to stardom
immediately for his work anchoring OLG.
He brings considerable depth and feeling to the laidback, ecumenically tolerant
Sean and also develops some poignantly halting romantic chemistry with Reilly O’Byrne-Inglis’s
Eda. Yet, the young and preternaturally wide-eyed Mihika Rao will truly haunt
viewers, becoming something akin to a cinematic poster-child for terrorism
victims as the innocent Atiya.
