‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (2008) Movie Review
In “Slumdog Millionaire” Jamal K. Malik grew up in the slums of Mumbai,and the movie shows that he is now on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”. He’s answered all the questions correctly, and is now on his final question to win 20,000,000 rupees. However, when they take a break from the show for the next day, the game show host has him arrested on suspicion of cheating. So the police shock him and torture him to try and get him to confess to cheating because they can’t understand how a boy from the slums could know all the answers. Finally, they stop torturing him after he continues to profess that he knew all the answers.
They proceed to run back the games show tape, and go over each question chronologically in an effort to explore why he knew the question to each answer. What they come up with is a couple of highly enlightening yet unfortunately disturbing reasons as to why he knew the answers to each question. Some of the reasons where that a young boy had his eyes burned out after singing a popular song because blind singers get payed more,Jamal had to fall into a pile of human waste in order to get a famous Indian actor’s autograph, and a memory of seeing his mother get killed was associated with one of the questions. While explaining all the reasons why he knew the answers,it also explored his relationship with his brother, Salim and the girl he loved named, Latika and how she was taken away from him by his brother, Salim and his gang. Then the cops asked what was his motivation for going on the show was since it wasn’t for money. He stated to them that he was hoping Latika would be watching. After that they let him go back on the game show to play for the 20 million rupee grand prize.
We, then see that Latika,and everyone is indeed watching the show. Salim,having a moment of solace, helps Latika escape to go see his brother, Jamal at the game show. Jamal is asked one final question in which he does not know the answer to, so he asks for a final life line, to call a friend. He calls his brother’s cellphone which Latika now haves because Salim gave it to her. She answers the phone,and now he knows that she is watching. Unfortunately, she does not know the answer to his question. However, in a glorious final moment he guesses the correct answer to win 20 million rupees.He then goes to finds Latika,and they appear to live a happily ever after.
My Take : I thought the movie was highly entertaining as well as unique. I still don’t think it should have beaten out ” The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ” for best picture at the Oscars,but it is a great film. I like how they put the sequences together, an how they specifically went back in time to explore the events that occurred giving him the question to each answer. Anyone wanting to see a unique and highly entertaining film should go see this one.
Grade : B +
Movie : Slumdog Millionaire
Release Date : November 12, 2008 (limited; wide: Dec. 19)
Studio : Fox Searchlight Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures
Cast : Dev Patel, Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan
