The film shows the perspectives of both the terrorists themselves (and the moments in which they inflicted merciless violence on victims) and those who were killed, saved, and worked to save others. The violence is extreme, almost intimate, and the camera doesn’t shy away from any moment, no matter how uncomfortable it makes audiences feel. It can be a difficult film to watch from start to finish, greatly because of its realism in showing details of the attacks. Naturally, some critics have reacted negatively to a hyper-realistic movie about the minute-by-minute violence. Some have gone as far as saying the film shouldn’t exist and have lashed out against the film for “exploiting the tragedy of the situation for spectacle’s sake,” like Variety film critic Peter Debruge . And as The Hollywood Reporter critic Jordan Minzter writes, “As you watch people getting shot left and right while the principals remain alive, at least for the time being, you start to wonder at one point: Why am I sitting through this?” But Hotel Mumbai director Anthony Maras doesn’t agree with those criticisms at all.