Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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157 of 191 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, 28 Dec 2008
As a British born Indian, I wanted to see Boyle take on his version of a bollywood film with a good mix of his direction, all the charm that most of Indian films have. Result, a good directorial effort with an Indian version of City of God; far less brutal and replaces that sardonic hardship from City of God to the hopeful dreams of a young boy from the slums, very much a style common in Indian films today.
I've been to India before and seen what this film shows. It doesn't make it less dreary by sugar coating; that's not Boyle's style, he will show what is there and this film depicts India's culture, beauty, depression, poverty, lustre, greed, vengeance, corruption and all the moralities. You might be mistaken into thinking I'm being patriotic but the fact is Boyle has made a very good film, with keeping the actual Indian viewers of this film in mind. He has given it a love story like most Indian films while providing the action and tension that so many Indian-film lovers sitting on corner streets in Mumbai and Delhi will want to see.
I've lived in West London all my life and this is as close to showing India any European film has done in the last 20 years, that includes Bend it like Beckham and Ghandi.
West-Londoner-born, like myself, Dev Patel made his début on SKINS, and excellent UK drama series involving the life of College/Sixformer teens. A good choice since learning an language and accent is easier, but also a familiar face to those who watch Skins. The main focus is on him becoming more than he is, a subtle underdog story that doesn't boast of its pious superiority. He just wants to find the girl, Latika, he met when he was a boy, save her from poverty, prostitution and give her a life she deserves. Along with that, Dev's character known as Jamal Malik has a older brother Salim Malik who cares for money and the high-life, anyway he can get it. It's the Romulus and Remus tale with loads of morality. There are 3 actors per character of Jamal, Salim & Latika, each depicting the 3 main characters at different ages who are excellently cast, cute and innocent from the younger ages; to the older actors who play them as time and chance have made them into what they are now, with their knowledge of the world changing their day-to-day perceptions. Dev's character gets the chance to play on "Who wants to be a Millionaire" in India (Indian Version) with familiar host and legendary Indian actor Anil Kapoor. What could a slum-dog know of the world, more than most. He's graduating from the university of life.
Contrasting, political, brutal, and bitter-sweet. 8.5/10.
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62 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not *really* all that great, 11 Jun 2009
The marketing people would have you believe that this film will leave you with a warm feeling inside, even that it is safe family viewing, and that it truly deserved to win all those Oscars. Although I did enjoy the film, I disagree with the marketing spin.
The film opens with our "hero", played by Dev Patel, in police custody, being interrogated and tortured as it is believed that he has been cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is one question away from winning the big prize and the presenter suspects that he is somehow engineering a win. After being electrocuted, he reveals that he just knew the answers and that nothing was afoot, and he proceeds to explain. The police play a recording of the show, and as each question is asked, he reveals how he knew the answers. It transpires that each answer relates in some way to events in his life, and there was no trickery at all.
There are some extremely funny moments here, some disgusting scenes (the toilet scene especially) and some utterly horrifying moments - the blinding of a child forced into a life of begging in particular. The love story aspect of the film seems to develop very suddenly, and Frieda Pinto must only be on screen for fifteen minutes or so and has hardly any lines of dialogue, but still I confess that I had a lump in my throat at the end, big softie that I am.
The film looks quite spectacular. In the first quarter or so of the film much appears to have been shot on hand-held cameras, and the images come thick and fast, almost disorientatingly fast, and some may find it hard to watch. Some scenes are incredibly beautiful, blazing with colour and life, and much of the early section is shot from low angles, which is clever as many of these scenes are dealing with childhood memories, so you are almost getting a child's eye view of the shanties of Mumbai. Obviously, there is a lot of subtitled dialogue here too.
All of the performances are good, the children and Dev Patel are particularly excellent. The film is well made too, but did it deserve so many accolades? Not really. I was disappointed if I'm honest, almost bored in a few places, but the film could have been an awful lot longer - we don't see every single question he was asked on the show, for example, just a few. It should also be noted that the film bears little resemblance to the book...
"Feel-good film of the decade"? No - not at all. It's enjoyable, but not for kids or sensitive souls, and don't expect anything along the lines of "Pretty Woman". If you can, watch it before you buy it, otherwise you may be disappointed, as I was.
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40 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hard-hitting fable, 14 Jan 2009
Slumdog Millionaire is a film that, along with the Booker Prize winning novel White Tiger, attempts to show both sides of India - the light and the dark. It's marketed as a 'feel-good' movie but it doesn't start out that way, as it includes a lot of quite extreme violence, the kind you certainly won't see in feel-good movies like Mamma Mia for example. So the headline in the posters and billboards is a little misleading. What it is is a film that, as with some others directed by Danny Boyle, manages to combine the gritty, earthy reality of life on the streets with an uplifting sense of vibrancy and - in this case - even joy. It's a film about people living in appalling squalour that manages to be exciting and entertaining. The screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, based on Vikas Swarup's novel, is in essence a fabulous tale (or as we tend to abbreviate it, a fable) that is brought to the screen with some excellent camera-work that makes the viewer feel is if they are really down there in the slums of Mumbai. It's made to feel all the more realistic by the inclusion of at least two children who were literally taken from those slums in order to have leading roles in this film. Two brothers grow and develop but while one of them sticks to the straight and narrow, the other crosses over to the bad side, and while they may be living in abject poverty they still have lofty aspirations for the future - one of the many skills director Boyle has is to demonstrate that anybody, no matter how poor, can be ambitious and positive and this is never portrayed in a patronising way.
Mumbai is a city of perhaps 20 million people and most of them want to find not so much a way out, but a way to the top, and the theme of this movie is that of one person's struggle to achieve it (in his own very personal, romantic way) by the somewhat unlikely route of India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Basically he wants to find the girl of his dreams, a girl who he has known since childhood in the slums, and the best way to get her attention is to appear on the hugely successful TV quiz show.
I saw this first at the cinema and it was so good I bought the DVD too. It's a fantastic piece of cinematography and direction, there's a real story to it - even if somewhat unlikely - and I think it's one of the few DVDs that is worth owning as opposed to just renting briefly. The film isn't short at exactly two hours, but the deleted scenes on this DVD could all have been included and made it even better. Usually when you see deleted scenes you understand why they weren't included in the final cut; in this case I think the producers decided to stick to a 120-minute limit. If there's ever a 'Director's Cut' version, which could be 150+ minutes long, I would recommend it.
It's not the feel-good movie of the decade, as it is being promoted, but it's probably one of the best movies released in 2009. It fully deserves its 8 Oscars, including Best Picture, and really should not be missed if you haven't seen it already.
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