Ever since it won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the film finally got the attention of moviegoers everywhere, raking in more box-office numbers and becoming more well-known than what it initially was. Though for me I was high-skeptical on Best Picture films as they are not always best, but rather hits and misses. For last year's winner, No Country For Old Men, it was a great film until the second half. The last Best Picture movie that managed to blew me away was The Departed, which was 2 years ago. So you can see that the Academy is not the big-all end-all list of best movies. I'm going to sound biased and maybe even a bit fanboyish, but the Dark Knight is still to me the Best Film of 2008 and I can fight to the death at anyone in arguing why it is so. But this article is not about the Dark Knight, but of Slumdog Millionaire. But how did The Dark Knight able to get into an article about Slumdog Millionaire? As I said how The Dark Knight was to me the best movie of 2008, I wouldn't let it affect my viewing of Slumdog Millionaire. I had come in expecting it to be Best Picture Material and I really want expect good things to come out from the film. Hell, I wanted it to be better than the Dark Knight. Prove me wrong then. Make me believe in the Academy again. I came in to see Slumdog Millionaire with a fresh mind and a bit of high expectancy and after finally watching it, it was just a good film.
I take it as I come and go and to me, Slumdog Millionaire is really best described as a "City of God" with a fairytale ending. Not to say this is a really bad film, its just an average, if not a good film. There are moments depicting of the harsh, yet poetic environment of poverty-ridden India. There are some beautiful moments to look at. Yet there are moments where it is just clichéd, cheezy and even dull. Coming off as a hybrid-Bollywood film, you can expect many melodramatic "happy" fairytale elements as well as your darker harsher and realistic elements. The thing is that this balance is not quite balanced and as the film progress, most of these elements become inconsistent, irrelevant and even predictable. Really, you will begin at a scene where you can't predict what's happening, but by near the end, you can REALLY predict everything.
The film begins with a poor teenage Indian boy, Jamal who is lucky enough to be a contestant in the Indian-version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. He is one question away from winning the giant jackpot money, but after the show goes off the air, he is whisked away by the police and get brutally interrogated, accused of cheating. In proving that he is not a cheat, he chronicles his sad and harsh life, reflecting from the questions he was given during the show.
I'll probably start off with the good points. The cinematography is inventive at some time and it really does capture the harsh and poverty landscape of India. The soundtrack have many good tracks covering all traditional and modern Indian music, some fit in good and some didn't fit at all. There are some noteworthy performances from some of the actors such as Dev Patel of Skins, playing as the under(slum)dog hero, Jamal. The darker elements in the film are the some of the great highlights in the film and the humor are standard Danny-Boyle taste.
The film is a hybrid of Bollywood film, which in a way, consist of many typical clichéd Hollywood-like elements. From a Bollywood film, you do get what you get. It is no problem when it is balanced of having darker and lighter elements. The problem is that the lighter elements are not light, they are cheesy, clichéd, overbearing elements that overbalance the darker element to the point where they are not useless and uninteresting. Its like being told about a serious Holocaust story and then being showered with puppies and kittens, just to forget about it. And its just like that. Not to say that movies shouldn't have a happy ending. Its fine. Its just that nearly the towards the end, the darker scenes and moments seemed forgotten and are washed by predictable happy scenarios where everything is going to be fine anyway. Its a feel-good overload. Despite so many sh*t have been thrown in. Some characters are great, but the whole cast seem interesting, with some were undeveloped and lamely-constructed. Some fit the clichés in the fairytale formula and some don't know which clichés to go into. Like Jamal's brother, Salim who the writer doesn't know whether he's the over-caring brother or just the evil douchebag. And instead of being both by being carefully intertwined, the character just goes really far in the deep end of each of them. And it shouldn't bother me, but when the character is important and you see his obvious, yet convoluted transitions so many times, it just annoyed the hell out of me. Again in the beginning, you really do feel for the hero . But near up the end, you say to yourself "Do I really need to?".
This film is not really bad. Its actually done fine and well. There is nothing mind-blowing or too thought-provoking about it. Of course there are the issues of poverty, sex trade and violence, but the film is kind of saying "Oh don't worry about those, we can just dance it off". It just doesn't end in a subtle way. As a film itself, its a good film to watch. But since its now labeled "Best Picture of 2008" by the Academy, you sometimes wish you can get more out of it. You won't be very disappointed by it, but expect typical Hollywood/Bollywood magic.
3.5 out of 5 stars
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