Slumdog Millionaire

Now this one is difficult one to comment upon after seeing what happened to poor Big B after one of the comments on his Blog which was not very charitable to the film and Big B did the unpardonable sin to comment on it. But my Blog has had less than a century of hits in its entire lifetime yet and I should not be able to raise a storm in a chai cup, even if I tried to.
So here I go with my take on the film which got 8 Oscars, a hundred + more Awards and had three Indians winning Oscars for a British film with an Indian Heart. I would have ruffled a million hearts by that opening statement itself about the the origin country.This one from Danny Boyle (Now this is a Director I dig!!) and he does portray the slums of Mumbai with more energy than a Salaam Mumbai though not equal pathos. It has the young kids giving mature performances all kudos the Director and you almost wished they didn’t grow old (no offense Dev Patel!!). It has AR Rahman catching the spirit with the right strain of music and Jai Ho was like a typical Bollywood Item Number, as it was totally unnecessary had group dancers, absurd location and foottapping rhythm.
This film is not glorifying poverty and the miseries, but only portrays with an eerie impressionable edge to it which is sometimes uncomfortably close to the reality. The script is beautifully woven into a string on film, the sounds rock, editing so Boylish as seen in Trainspotting, 28 Days later etc and the ending so euphoric that it jolts you into celebration of the human spirit. The kids speaking in English in accents is a bit jarring and the so is the convenience of justifying a Slum boy knowing the Quiz questions. Anil Kapoor gives a good performance as he tries his best to undermine the protagonist with his condescending attitude. The Washroom scene is one of the highlights of the film. Amitabh and Shah Rukh must be ruing not answering Danny's calls for this role. Irrfan Khan who has now made a few International films plays the Inspector with the right pitch and Freida is good for the part she is handed. The narrative does past forward rewind but all in accordance to the requirements and not to confusion which Christopher Nolan so usually does to his audience. The film length is taut and crisp while the British topline crew works magic with the Indian bottom line cast.
Fox Searchlight marketed the film vigorously and the triumph of the human spirit in these times of recession was the clincher for the Juries worldwide at all the Awards from the BAFTAs, Screen Guild to the Oscars.
The film does deserve the attention it has garnered but its surely is not Rahman's best work and it’s the Ensemble cast performance rather than one stellar performance which pushes this film to its heights. Jai Ho is the new Congress Poll Anthem, the kids are giving interviews while Sukhwinder is also giving them as to how he couldn’t make it to the Oscars.
Danny wants to make another film in Mumbai hoping to hit paydirt once again as the 15 million dollar movie is close to grossing $300 million worldwide (almost as much as the Bollywood makes in one year!!).

Rating: ****