Every once in a while, you come across movies that stay with you. Movies that make you think. Movies where you pause between mouthfuls of popcorn to actually absorb whats going on.
Every once in a while, we see a movie such as Slumdog Millionaire.
The movie is a Hollywood movie based in India, has an Indian cast that speaks English (mostly), the music is Indian (AR Rahman got nominated for a Golden Globe for the music of this movie), and the India portrayed is very Indian.
The director Danny Boyle, is no Aditya Chopra. No nonsense. No song and dance. In your face. To the point.
The movie is about this young guy who wins two Crore rupees on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire is his story.
The protagonist’s name is Jamal Malik. His mother gets killed in riots by some religious crapheads. He goes under the care of this guy who runs a begging cartel and manages to escape from there. Thereafter he runs little con jobs here and there to make ends meet, his brother becomes a gangster, he loses the girl he used to like, and he ends up in a call center, as a chai wallah.
On the show, the host, played by the ever so charismatic Anil Kapoor, ridicules him for his lowly social stature, but he keeps going. Since he does so well, he gets handed over to the police under the assumption that a slumdog must have cheated to achieve what none of the educated types were able to manage.
He gets beaten up and tortured and tells his story to a very sympathetic cop (Irfan Khan). We get to see a story for each question that he answered on the show. Therein lies the one weak aspect of the movie – his success comes across as just a fluke, because he specifically knew the answers to only the questions asked, without really being a super smart encyclopedia types.
The movie is surreal. It is so real. There is no stone that it doesn’t leave unturned. First there’s the fanatics killing people because of their religion . There is the organized beggary gang which gives poor homeless kids food to eat, teaches them bhajans, and takes out their eyes to make them beggable. There is the young girl sent into prostitution. There is the newly realized activism of the police who wouldn’t catch criminals but torture an innocent person on suspicion that he cheated on a game show.
Then of course there are the white people being taken for a walk by enterprising Indians.
This movie has been playing for a while here in New York, yet when we saw it this weekend the theater was packed. We were surprised to see such high attendance for a primarily Indian movie. Is it because New Yorkers love India? Is it because they love poor, ugly, gritty India? Not sure about that.
If you want to see the mirror, go watch this movie. Of course, if you just want to see Shahrukh Khan, and his oh-so-overflowing love, there’s movies such as Rub Ne Bana Di Jodi.
SlumDog Millionaire, English, Dec 08
Rating: 4.5/5
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Thanks for the review
Definitely going for tonight’s show! Merry Christmas 
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Will watch it this wkend.
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Nice review… saves me the hassle of watching it
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Well, this is one movie I would love to watch. Thanks for teh review!
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Will definitely have to watch the movie, even though I am very wary of ‘gora’ portrayals of India.
Cheers,
Quirky Indian
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Its my first 5/5 rating for a movie in a long long time. Awesome movie.
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@Kiran, @Vijay, @Poonam – Thanks.
@QI – Good point you bring up about gora portrayals of India. This one is quite realistic – hard to believe that a non indian made this movie.
@Philip – Awesome movie indeed. 5/5 movies are rare
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QI/ AD
Have you seen Satyajit Ray’s portrayal of India? Some accused him of cashing in on India’s poverty to earn recognition at Cannes etc. The truth remains that India is largely not a glittering country of plenty but of poverty. People who visit India for the first time always come away shocked and rightly so. I am guessing it hurts because brutal portrayals are really too close to the truth, eh?
The book on which the film is based – called Q&A – is written by an Indian civil servant called Vikas Swarup. It was such a low key book that few have read it. Unusually for me, although I do not read fiction, I have read it having bought it as an ‘airport paperback’ once. From the reviews and the huge number of TV rushes and interviews that I have read and seen so far – the UK release is Jan 9th – it seems the director has done a great job of portraying India in high fidelity just like the author of the book has done.
In production notes type of commentary, most street kids are real street kids, not actors. The lead is a British teen who has only recently emerged in the public’s consciousness and his last role was in an experimental teen drama called Skins.
Besides Danny Boyle is a director of some talent. His other products have been The Beach and Trainspotting. As gritty portrayals go, he did not leave Glasgow unscathed in the latter. But if you see the real Glasgow in all honesty, you will see he said or showed nothing that isn’t already there. At least he is true to his art, and you can be sure he did not single India out for this ‘special gritty realism’ treatment.
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Whoa, sounds like a brilliant movie. I’m sure going to watch it.
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If you have seen more than 1 of the 5 oscar nominations, vote for the one you think will win the best picture award at oscardb.com (before Feb 22nd).
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There is no hope for india because indians are too stupid and brainwashed to even realize when someone is insulting them. Why has the Sone ki Chidiya turned into slums. It is because indian have sold their soul to every ******* invader who with wide smirk calls us dog and *****. the movie has an american couple handing over dollar bill to slumdog. the movie shows little blue heathen murderer god in middle of a riot. the movie has ghanshyam bhajan being sung out by blinded children. if indians are so stupid to realize what is gora propaganda they deserve to be annihilated like native americans another good deed done by our british friends and “visitors”. now americans are even calling their sepoy pet Jindal as slumdog so movie was specifically designed to denigrate indians. but indians are born only to lickspittle and dance ***** in front of gora. go ahead and delete this comment if you like but let it be known that only real slumdog is the Indians who love this movie. tell your children you are slumdog and proud of it. foools
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@Mr S Singh – I have edited your comment to remove the expletives. I will not delete the comment just so everybody has the chance to read this piece of art.
You are free to express your opinion, but please refrain from using such language in public forums.
(If you have to rant, at least try to make it grammatically correct.)
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I have seen this movie and belive me there is no nosense. Movie is perfectly kneeted with Indian reality.
@Admin : Please update us with more latest news about bollywood.
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[...] Movie Review – Slumdog Millionaire Every once in a while, you come across movies that… [...]
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“The truth remains that India is largely not a glittering country of plenty but of poverty. People who visit India for the first time always come away shocked and rightly so.”
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