Slumdog Millionaire

Spoiler: This movie hasn’t released in India yet so if you plan on watching it soon then skip this review.

I love the movie, I hate some of its liberties, I love the way the film captured the inner alleys of India, I hate the fact that it captured just that!!

By far Slumdog Millionaire is a really great watch. Really great direction, amazing camera work and really awesome yet grounded editing.

I love the plot… an illiterate boy Jamal (Dev Patel) from the slums has been able to answer nine questions on the Indian version of Who wants to be a millionaire… and then he is arrested on charges of cheating… that’s when he tells his story and the reason why he knew all those answers…

Some highlights
Even though it was a smaller role, I have never seen Anil Kapoor like this. Just brilliant!! I’m so glad that SRK rejected this role when it was offered to him. Good to see Anil like this… oh and he dances as well!! Jhakaasss!!

Great story-telling!! The way the story shifts from WWTBAM to the boy’s life and then back to the show is really well done. The movie is adapted from Vikas Swarup’s novel Q&A. Haven’t read the book but want to now.

Good casting- Most of the major roles are played by new-comers and they do a great job. Apart from them an Anil are Irrfan Khan (regular), Saurabh Shukla (expected), Mahesh Manjrekar (repetitive) and Raj Zutshi (hardly there).

Good eye- Rustic and rundown urban Bombay and other parts of India have been captured very nicely. Nothing that you haven’t seen before but it is amazing how a foreigner can show India like this. Feels like a Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay but only 10 times better.

Cons
Somehow it seems strange how Jamal, his brother and Latika know English especially when they have been established as street urchins and speak Hindi as kids.

The pace and ingenuity of the second half comes down compared to the first. Don’t know exactly why but do know that portions of the film was directed by an Indian so that might have caused the change in consistency.

Liberties have been taken regarding the rules of WWTBAM.

The English subtitles aren’t precise to the Hindi translation but they work nonetheless.

But ignore the last 10 lines or so. Watch the film not because it needs to be seen but somewhere I do have a feeling that even a pirated Karzzz watching Gujarati will also take this movie seriously and just might raise his movie watching intellect.

Indian cinema is going places. Stallone starring in a Hindi film, western directors making films here, outsourcing to India in post-production from all over the world, it was about time we started being taken seriously. But I sincerely wish that we do go those levels of international standards!! Touchwood…