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Bookmark this pageSlumdog Millionaire (2008)
Director: Danny Boyle
Movie review
From Time Out London
Danny Boyle’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a film so upbeat and colourful that, by the time you’re relaying its infectious air of optimism to friends, you could forget that it features orphans, slaughter, organised crime, poverty, enslavement and police brutality in its crowd-pleasing repertoire of suffering and renewal. Hell, it even ends with a get-up-and-dance Bollywood number on the platform of Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus.Shot entirely in India and largely on location, the fabric of the film is winningly realistic. But the story is pure fantasy inspired partly by co-producer Celador’s desire to enshrine its winning creation, the game show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ in a movie.Still, Boyle succeeds in leaving these creepy beginnings behind to create a film that’s full of warmth and humanity and forever looks on the bright side of tragedy. The script is a simple conceit: writer Simon Beaufoy (‘The Full Monty’) has ripped up Vikas Swarup’s novel ‘Q&A’ and turned it into a rags-to-riches yarn about Jamal (Dev Patel), a young, slum-born adult in Mumbai who gives such a cracking performance on ‘…Millionaire’, that he’s only one question shy of the 20-million-rupee jackpot. Such unlikely success inspires envy on the part of the show’s creepy host (Anil Kapoor), who invites the police to arrest, question and torture him. This interrogation offers flashbacks of episodes in Jamal’s life that reveal the extraordinary sources of his knowledge and lend Boyle the handy framework of a child becoming an adult against all the odds in an India that’s changing by the hour but still dangerous for any kid on the loose.
Of all Boyle’s mixed work, from the promise of ‘Shallow Grave’ to the embarrassment of ‘Millions’ and the recent experiment of ‘Sunshine’, his new film probably best resembles ‘Trainspotting’: where in that film he found energy, humour and bonhomie in the stupor of heroin addiction, here he takes the impoverished life of a young Indian and spins it into an escapist fairytale steeped in the sights and sounds of the new India. By the time Jamal gets his girl – ultimately and simplistically it’s a romance – and everyone’s tapping their feet, you’ll have forgotten that one of his young friends was blinded and another sold into prostitution. You may also forgive some of the plot’s wilder turns and increasingly erratic jumps in time.
Boyle flirts with realism but never fully buys into it.
He’s too concerned with keeping the mood light and the pace furious. He’s a flashy filmmaker at times, but the real saving grace of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is how Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle go to extreme and pleasing lengths to soak up the colours, people and places of India. The film’s messages – that hard-earned street knowledge can be as valuable as traditional education and, while hardly original, that later success can overcome earlier hardship – are attractive if you’re willing to bite your tongue at the air of positivity. With so much good humour about you can even forgive the film’s bizarre slip from one language to another as young Indian actors give way to a warm, English-language performance from Britain’s Patel, who’s just one of a cast of actors who are as likeable and compelling as the film itself.
Author: Dave Calhoun
Time Out London Issue 2003, 8 - 14 Jan, 2009
User reviews of this film
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- Charlotte said...
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Posted on Mar 01 2009 12:50
I really want to watch this film dispite the arguments on here lol! i cant see how a film that won 8 oscars is crap honestly each to there own i suppose i really really want to watch it i bet it will be BRILL is every aspect.
Everyone has different tastes dont they not everyone has to like the same thing then we would all be boring lol. And y r people arguing on here its a cinema website go argue on facebook lol!! - Report as inappropriate
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- Livie said...
- Posted on Mar 01 2009 11:35 Saw this film yesterday. It was Amazing!!
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- California Knowles said...
- Posted on Mar 01 2009 11:05 I cant belive it won lodes of awards because it was so predictable. The best film is California Knowles in london. (Which oviously includes me!!!) And aswell why is it called slumdog millionare?
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- Dev Patel said...
- Posted on Mar 01 2009 09:06 Hey Russ looks like you've had your medication as the swearing count is well down. Presumably your little group are all kitted out in their white bedsheets and burning crosses. It's great that you keep on rising up as it gives us all a chance to respond with six-star ratings. The average is up to 5 now so presumably this will encourage more readers to go and see this great film.
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- Dev Patel said...
- Posted on Feb 28 2009 23:40 Hey Russ, you an inpatient for tourettes then? How long do they give you on the computer each day? Just seen Benji Button and what a pile of American poo that was. Guess it would be safe enough for your redneck tastes though.
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- Danny Boy!! said...
- Posted on Feb 28 2009 22:31 lol youre a funny guy, and blatantly American Russ. Sad man
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- Rolla said...
- Posted on Feb 28 2009 20:17 this film is the best film i hav eva seen nd itz amazin nd also really clever :]
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- Rolla said...
- Posted on Feb 28 2009 20:16 thiz iz da best film i hav eva seen itz amazin nd really cleva
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- kate said...
- Posted on Feb 28 2009 12:37 is it that bad? i aint seen it but on tv it looked good.
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- Dan said...
- Posted on Feb 28 2009 12:33 Here here Dev, Russ you blatantly have no taste or wish to be cultured in any way whatsoever so do yourself and everyone else a favour in future dont go and watch anything without tits n guns in it and keep youre snoring at home, i dont want my film viewing to be interupted by you.
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- Dev Patel said...
- Posted on Feb 28 2009 08:58 Russ.... you must be a very sad little man to be moved to write all this nonsense.
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- badman said...
- Posted on Feb 27 2009 19:19 wow what a boring film a group of us went and couldnt wait for the finish how did it win all those
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- clear tipe said...
- Posted on Feb 27 2009 18:50 Thankfully this film has not a thing in common with Bollywood offerings - apart from some dancing on a railway station as the credits rolled - so you can go see it and stop worrying that it's a tot of candy floss. A moving eye opener of Indian sub-culture and criminal exploitation of homeless kids. Roll on the sequel Bombay Cash Boy.
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- lottie said...
- Posted on Feb 27 2009 18:28 Wow alot of mixed views....helpful!
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- aimee said...
- Posted on Feb 27 2009 17:36 This film is brilliant!!! two thumbs up!
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Cast & crew
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irfan Khan, Madhur Mittal full cast
Rated: 15
Duration: 110 mins
UK Release: Jan 23 2009
US Release: Nov 13 2008
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