Ishika Mohan
Mumbai, India, may be inhabited by millions, but Jamel (Dev Patel) and Latika (Freida Pinto) keep finding each other in "Slumdog Millionaire."
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Oh, how I loved this movie, from the first scene in a dingy police station to the last with the entire cast hoofing it up in a grimy train station. It's always nice to see glorious grit from a cushy movie theater seat.
For 121 minutes, "Slumdog Millionaire" took me away from the sanitized and mostly safe Montgomery County to the colorful and often putrid sights and sounds of Mumbai, India. With loads of melodrama, lost love and a constant cacophony of slum life, Director Danny Boyle ("Trainspotting") gives viewers an Indian vacation of sorts.
The story revolves around 18-year-old Jamel (Dev Patel), the chai wallah or tea server who has TV watchers throughout India mesmerized. He is within minutes of winning 20 million rupees on his country's version – even down to the music and set - of the American game show "Who wants to be a Millionaire."
The problem is that the show's sleazy MC and head honcho is sure the teen is cheating, that the teen can't possibly know the answers. Torture is first up in his bag of tricks, but don't worry. After Jamel is slapped, practically drowned in a bucket of water and given some old-fashioned electric shocks – with a car battery - the local police chief begins to listen. Jamel reveals how he has learned the answers to the show's questions and suffice it to say, MCPS needn't worry; Indian schools had nothing to do with it.
Instead, in flashbacks, Jamel explains how he knows the name of one of India's most famous action film stars, leading to one of funniest and sweetest but possibly the most nauseating movie scenes I can remember. It's not all light-hearted-fun. Jamel recalls in horrifying detail how he knows the name of the man on a U.S. $100 bill.
As the questions are asked, Jamel and his brother Salim's (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) childhoods are played out. Slum kids play baseball on an airstrip as jumbo jets attempt to land. Soon we follow the barefoot little heroes on a tour of miles of tin-roofed slums while airport security guards chase them. Boyle offers a brief glimpse of Hindu mobs murdering in Jamel's Muslim neighborhood. Next we are transported to the steaming garbage dumps dotted with poor children rooting for items to sell. Wealthy Western tourists get into the act when Jamal and Salim become Taj Mahal tour guides, making up their own version of historic events.
Cut to the gameshow and Indian audiences, from the poorest beggar to the well-to-do, are watching to see if the tea server takes the money and runs, or keeps trying to win the entire amount.
In keeping with traditional Indian-style films, Jamel and his leading lady Latika (Freida Pinto) remain chaste. While the other characters are clearly good or evil, Salim is the only complicated character. He's either saving his brother from a savage maiming or taking away the love of Jamel's life.
From beginning to end this "Slumdog" is doggone good.
-Slumdog Millionaire
Rated R. 121 minutes.
Comedy/Drama with English
subtitles.
Cast: Dev Patel, Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan.
Director: Danny Boyle.
