Review - Slumdog Millionaire

When released in 2008, Slumdog Millionaire became a sleeper hit, doing good business at the box office and sweeping the 2009 OSCARS. It's not surprising to see why – director Danny Boyle handles the drama, comedy and pathos in the well written script well, backed up with a very talented cast and exotic Indian scenery.

The film opens with a young Indian man named Jamel (Dev Patel) being tortured by the police. It transpires that Jamel has just finished filming an episode of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” and he has made it to just one question away from the 20 million rupee top prize. However there are suspicions as to how a poor “slumdog” got that far, and the police want to find out if he's cheating and how. Through flashback we discover how Jamel knows the answers to the quiz questions, and also learn about his turbulent life.

The flashbacks start from when Jamel is five or six years old, living in the slums with his brother Salima. After a tragic incident where their mother is killed, they go on the run and are eventually taken to a camp where they are trained to beg. There they meet Latika, who Jamel instantly has an attraction too. We follow the three characters lives which end up going in very different directions, along the way learning how Jamel picked up the knowledge he'd eventually use on the quiz show and we discover why he his on the show in the first place.

Danny Boyle directs the action at a cracking pace, and the script is both funny and dramatic. The early childhood scenes work the best. The child actors are fantastic, completely believable and very watchable. Emotionally the script and action veers all over the place, with everything from heartbreaking scenes to gross out jokes. Unfortunately as the characters get older the situations get a little more contrived, especially when gangsters get involved. The film retains a fair level of grittiness, especially during the early childhood scenes. As the film goes on the grittiness is lost a little, and although the situations the characters find themselves in get progressively more dangerous they seem a bit fake and don't have the edge found in the first half of the film. The Indian scenery is fabulous throughout and there's also an fantastic soundtrack.

It's hard not to get enveloped into Jamil's story and the final act is a real nail biter. Although Slumdog is marketed (in the UK at least) as an almost family friendly “feel good” film, it's actually quite a grim movie at times. It's not afraid to explore the dark side of human nature, and the oppressing grittiness of living in the slums themselves. These are themes Danny Boyle has handled before and done well, and they come across well in this film. If like me it's taken you a while to get round to seeing this film, don't delay it for too long – it's well worth watching.