AMB Reviews

Slumdog Millionaire: 9.5/10 Stars

Release Date: January 23, 2009

Content Advisory: Rated R for some violence, disturbing images and language. A man is briefly electrocuted. Towns are raided and people are set on fire and beat (the scenes are more intense than graphic). Two boys enter a brothel (we only see clothed couples on several beds making out). A couple of f-words. Several intense chase scenes, several men are shot (no blood), and several are beat up.

Review:

Slumdog Millionaire just recently won the Academy Award for Best Picture and about a trillion other awards. After the Oscars, I realized that I had to see this movie. I mean... what kind of critic doesn't review the winner for Best Picture?

In Short:

In brief, Slumdog Millionaire tells the tale of Jamal, who, after being put on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" is somehow able to answer all of the questions. Being arrested before he can answer the winning question, he is accused of cheating, and recounts his dark past, living on the streets, and how he knows the answers. But what about Latika... Jamal's childhood love? What will it take to find her once again? Luck? Smarts? Destiny? This movie teaches the latter in an intense and truly beautiful story.

In Full:

Slumdog Millionaire is set in the streets of India. Here, the homeless run wild, the people are dirty and poor, and they go to the bathroom in outhouses. Here, Jamal was raised by his mother until she was killed during a village raid. Escaping with his brother, Salim, and his crush, Latika, they eventually end up in an orphanage. Once they discover the dastardly plans of the orphanage manager, Jamal and Salim escape, but lose Latika on the way. Now, several years later, fully grown Jamal is put on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" where he is able to correctly answer every single question. However, right as he is about to answer the winning question, he is arrested on accounts of cheating. Finds out however, it wasn't cheating... every question related somehow to his dark past. But what about Latika? Trying to convince the police of his innocence, Jamal must also track down his true love from the past and hopefully learn a touching lesson of love and destiny.

Basically every single actor/actress in this film was unknown. Oh no... this must mean horrible, choppy acting. It was actually quite the opposite. I found the acting quite good. Of course, it wasn't good to win any Oscars, but it was certainly good enough to keep our interest. I never once found myself criticizing the film for bad acting. I hadn't heard of one lone actor in the film, but in the end, it didn't matter. Dev Patel plays Jamal with just the right emotion and Freida Pinto, as well as being gorgeous, is able to correctly capture the emotion and feelings of Latika. The rest of the supporting cast was also decent, and as stated before, the acting once got in the way of the film.

At times, Slumdog Millionaire feels like a low-budget film, visual wise. Of course, it is much lower-budget than many films out there... but it at times felt a little too low. That being said, none of the visuals were too bad. Many of the chase scenes retained suspense (partially due to the upbeat Indian soundtrack) and even when there wasn't action, you still felt the need to stay at the edge of your seat, knowing something would probably occur soon. Though the visuals weren't top-notch, they still were decent. I believe that one of the reasons for the occasional "low-budget" style of the movie, was to capture the realism of living in poverty in the streets of India.

The cons in this film are few. As noted above, the film has an occasional tendency to seem a little bit too low-budget, but not to a degree to wreck the film. Some have also claimed the film to be predictable and unoriginal. I found that statement to be untrue for most of the time. I find the best way to enjoy a movie is not to go in trying to predict what will happen. Rather, just sit back and enjoy it for what it is and wait to see what happens, rather than guessing. Doing that, I did not find the movie predictable in any way at all. I also think that I enjoyed it much more than for those who tried to predict the film's complete plotline.

Overall, Slumdog Millionaire is a film of many colors. On one side, you have Jamal on the game show, casually and shyly answering the questions. Flip it over, and we have flashbacks of Jamal's childhood and how it relates to the game show questions. Finally, we have Jamal in the present-day, at the police station, searching for Latika, and so on. Though it may seem like an overload... it's really quite the opposite. The movie draws you in from the intense opening scene to the ending dance sequence. I now see why this film has garnered so much attention and so many awards. And it deserves them. With solid acting, an intense and beautiful story, and decent visuals... Slumdog Millionaire has found its way onto my "Top 10 Favorite Movies."