Slumdog Millionaire Review

I would never have taped Slumdog Millionaire off of HBO if it wasn't for so many people saying how great it was.  It takes a few minutes to get into it, but once you do it is actually very interesting.  Perhaps it's just so new and different that I'm drawn in with the details of this culture.

The movie begins with a man getting tortured.  Apparently he was 1 quesiton away from winning a million dollars in the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire".  The reason he is being tortured is because they are trying to find out how he cheated.  They assume he cheated because how else would a "slumdog" know all these questions.

Jamal goes about to tell them stories from growing up that explain why he knew all the answers.  Each story though goes to show how horrible his life was growing up!  I'm not going to tell you any of the stories because I think you should see for yourself.  Seeing a young boy grow up in these conditions is insane and I'm sure it's realistic.  

Dev Patel plays the older Jamal and he is great at showing his life in his face.  He had a hard life and he hardly cracks a smile even when he is winning money on the Millionaire show at the start.  He's also sarcastic, something that happens after a hard life I guess, and isn't willing to be pushed around even by the cops that arrested him.  There were various actors that played Jamal through the different ages in his story.  There are also a variety of other kid actors in all the parts and I think they all did a great job of portraying this story and drawing you in to their lives.

Filmed in various locations throughout India, I got to see a world I would probably never see otherwise.  The scenery was great and really showed a lot of these locations.  They say it earned an R rating for it's "intense" tone and it is definitely intense!  These kids had a hard hard life and Jamal is now having a hard time even though he's only 1 question away from a million dollars.  While the movie doesn't have much swearing at all, there is some violence and definitely bad things and intense is probably the best way to describe it.  In other words - it's not a movie for kids!  The director, Danny Boyle, also did Trainspotting and 28 Days Later and I think this movie had a similar tone to those.

I really enjoyed how they did the subtitles.  Instead of being all on the bottom of the screen and hard to read, the subtitles would show next to the person talking, or on various other places on the screen.  So you weren't just sitting there reading the bottom of the screen, you were looking around throughout.  Plus, don't worry, there are not a ton of subtitles.  In the first 45 minutes or so when they aren't speaking English, there are many scenes with not many spoken words at all.  Instead, you just watch and see what happens.

Overall I thought this was a great movie and was surprised I liked a movie so much that starred kids for 80% of it!  You get to see where Jamal came from, everything he has gone through, and ultimately wonder if he will win the million.  Will he even be allowed to play the final question or will the police decide he is a cheater?  It took home 8 oscars including Best Picture as well as 90+ other awards.  Check it out for yourself to see what all the hype is about.  Enjoy!