Boyles Big Bollywood Dance Off (Slumdog Millionaire (DVD))

Member Name: spencer_hawken

Product:	Slumdog Millionaire (DVD)
Date:	13/01/09 (302 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A wake up call for those that think India is better off now

Disadvantages: A touch too long

Its only just about to see audiences in most of the world but already Danny Boyle's latest offering Slumdog Millionaire is being touted as the best movie of the year (leaning back into 2008 of course). From looking at the trailers for the movie and how perfectly pictured each frame is, you could be persuaded to believe that the movie is great family viewing, but Boyle's world is as dark and nightmarish as it is beautiful.

Told in flashbacks the movie opens in not the best of ways, finding its star Dev Patel (best known for the TV show Skins) who plays Jamal Malik, under interrogation by the Indian police, the reason? Jamal is just one question away from winning the jackpot on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The problem that the games host and the police have is how exactly a boy from the slums of Mumbai could know all the answers to these questions. This is where the flashbacks come into play, for each answer Jamal has given, you are sent back in time to Jamal's childhood, and the situations he finds himself in that led to him knowing the answers to the questions.

Slumdog Millionaire is a really emotional journey, but despite its feel good factors its incredibly dark. In one of the earliest of the movies scenes brothers Jamal and Salim look on in horror as their mother and hundreds of others are massacred while doing their washing. Sadly for the brothers and the newly acquired Latika (a girl orphaned in the same tragedy) this is just the first of a string of nightmare scenarios. As the movie progresses you shown children being deliberately blinded in order to earn more money begging, others sold into the sex industry, and the then power of India's gangs.

In days gone by you are reminded of the terrible poverty in other countries, India being a prime example of this. But in recent years the country has been forgotten when it comes to more western cinema. With the world for many years enjoying the good life with a brisk boom in spending, you think that possibly countries like India have moved on. Boyle is quick to dispel any of these myths showing you that while the rich get richer, the poor are every bit as poor as they were years ago when the world's attention turned to the poverty within the country. You are shown the two different sides, and the terrible indifference shown towards the poorer members of the public from those more "well to do". This is illustrated in the most part by Who Wants To Be A Millionaires host Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor), a man who rose from India's slums to the high life as India's highest paid television personality. Initially he publically mocks Jamal, especially after discovering his current employment makes him a tea boy in a call centre. As the movie progresses however he is forced to change his attitude, or at least he wants you to believe he has.

At the movies heart is an enjoyable love story in which two souls are separated continually, and for one it's a continuous struggle to try and be reunited with the one they love. This relationship is put to the test the entire way through the movie.

Slumdog Millionaire's India has been delivered perfectly by director Boyle; it feels like an important Indian movie made by the Indian's themselves. But this is not the case, Boyle who seems here a hundred miles from his shocking Trainspotting roots, maybe accused of going a little bit soft, or even too commercial. As if expecting such criticism he has gone out of the way to prove this not to be the case, and for anyone who remembers the ghastly excrement scene from Trainspotting, be prepared for something far worse here as Jamal is forced to dive into a pit of sewage.

The cast are fantastic, Dev Patel at first strikes you as being a bit of a hollow actor, but this is all the intention of the movies creators, this is a man rocked to his very core, and as the movie progresses you see why. The big congratulations should go to Azharruddin Mohammed Ismail, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, and Rubiana Ali who play the young versions of Salim, Jamal, and Latika. These are the characters' that you spend an equal portion of the movie with, and the ones that you take to your heart long after the credits roll, because while you're aware that Slumdog Millionaire is just a movie, your also aware that the terrible things that happen to the trio do happen each and every day in a very modern India.

The movie musical score includes M.I.A's smash hit single Paper Planes, while other artists give the movie a very modern feel in case you were in any doubts as to the movies timeframe. While fans of Bollywood movies will undoubtedly enjoy the movies full cast in-credit dance sequence. As for the best movie of 2008, perfect is pretty close for this movie, but you feel that it runs just a little too long.

Slumdog Millionaire is in cinemas now.

Summary: An tea boy from Mumbai's slums defies the odds on a game show