Spoilers: This review reveals the ending of the movie. I don’t feel it’s a problem since it’s obvious from pretty much the first scene.
Why doesn’t anybody get the offensiveness of this movie? Slumdog Millionaire is about a kid who grows up in abject poverty in India and due to mostly luck, wins 20,000,000 rupees on that country’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The movie, which has been called the time-warn cliché “The feel good hit of the year”, wants us to cheer when its protagonist succeeds. Well, I would be pretty excited if I was in his position, but what about the millions of other people who will never get the chance to go on a Western game show?
The negative star rating is not soley because I do not agree with this movie’s message. It is because it is a bad movie that delivers its message in a boring way. It is slightly less exciting than a bad episode of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? and is a whole lot more boring.
The biggest problem is the fact the movie’s protagonist, Jamal Malik (played as a child by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar and Tanay Chheda and as an adult by Dev Patel) is boring. Neither directors Boyle and Tandan, nor screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (who adapted the script from the novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup) nor especially Patel seems to make any real effort and making Jamal an interesting, distinctive character. I generally don’t like to critize the performances of actors, as you can never tell whether a bad performance is the fault of the performer or director, but Patel is one of the blandest leads I’ve ever seen a movie. Comparisons can be made to George Peppard in his ability to “inspire” a total lack of audience engagement.
The child actors are okay and do what they can, but the movie lingers on Jamal’s childhood far too long and the material kind of like something out of a Dickens novel. Jamal and his brother Salim (Azaruddin Mohammed Ismail, Ahutosh Lobo Gajiwala, and Madhur Mittal) live in a dirt poor slum near a landfill, where they make money by charging admission to outdoor bathrooms. What little childhood happiness they find is ruined when their Hindu mother (Sanchita Couhdary) is killed in religious strife with Muslims. They allow an orphaned girl, Latika (Freda Pinto, Rubiana Ali and Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar) to lived with them and Jamal has a Great Expectations like lifelong connection to her. Eventually, Salim and Latika get involved in mafia activities which Jamal wants no part of, and so of course he goes on the game show, not only to win the money, but in the hopes that Latika will somehow see him again.
I haven’t mentioned yet that the movie uses the obnoxious technique of intercutting Jamal’s appearance on the game show with his interrogation after he is arrested on the suspicion of cheating AND his life story. Or Boyle’s and Tandran’s employment of a tone and cinematic techniques that try too hard be cool. Or the obvious screenwriting. Every question save one is answered by some kind of meaningful moment in his past. Couldn’t just one of these questions come from reading them in a book or learning them in school?
And what are we to make of this “joyful” movie, anyway? Life has meaning because one person escapes poverty through mostly random chance and can now joins the upper classes, where he can live off the labor of the proletariat in luxury? Lucky him.