Flawed but great in parts

Rating: 7/10 (25 January 2009)

Well, the critics are getting awfully excited about this film, so I'd like to join the debate with a strong note of caution.
This is a pretty good movie but I think the imperfection that lies at its heart is what stops it being a great movie. namely, the acting. Of it's 10 Oscar nominations not a single one is for the performances of its leading players and that is, in my view, totally appropriate.
This movie is too much of a pick n mix affair to truly satisfy. The central cinematic device at its core, telling a life story (in three sub-generations; infant, child and teen means that its too stop-start to really fully engage.) What you find is that the two younger sections of the film are both more believable and more engaging than the latter stage which starts to unravel in credibility the more it develops.
The performances of the two younger Jamals are light of touch, frequently hilarious - particularly in the movie's highlight where the youngest Jamal exits the latrines in true Trainspotting style - and quite moving. Poor old, rather wooden and not especially engaging, Dev Patel has to deal with a plot that is becoming more ridiculous by the moment as his pursuit of the beautiful Latika verges, at times, on the preposterous. How Salim can continually cross paths with the object of his affection so often in a city with a population twice that of the whole of the UK was beyond me.
OK, that's all the bad stuff out of the way, now let's turn to the positives. The cinematography (an Oscar nod for Anthony Dod Mantle) and sound design in this movie combine to stunning effect at times. It's like a Discover documentary at its best and you simply cannot get enough of Mumbai, which is given added oomph by the music of A.R. Rahman who picks up no less than three Oscar nominations. Nice use of MIA's music in places too.
It's actually all the technical disciplines that this movie excels in and has been recognised for (sound, sound editing, music, cinematography and editing). so that neatly brings us to its direction.
Danny Boyle.
What to make of him? Well, a director's job is to realise all aspects of a production from performance to technical. I think the script blew his chances of the former but he has excelled at the latter and to many it is seen as the highlight of his career. I beg to differ. His track record is patchy to say the least. Trainspotting is by far the most overrated film of its generation (not a patch on his brilliant Shallow Grave), The Beach and A Life Less Ordinary are best glossed over. But 28 Days Later is as good a horror movie as has been made since The Shining, and Sunshine is as good as it gets in Sci fi. Both are, in my humble opinion at least, better movies than Slumdog.
But you lot don't seem to agree. A quick look at Boyle's IMDb ratings shows that the public consider Slumdog his masterpiece with a rating of 8.7 (astonishingly, that places it 34th in IMDb's all time list). How is this possible in a seemingly foolproof ratings mechanism? Early enthusiasm? Maybe as the ratings mature he will come back to the field. I'd think that will indeed be the case as old moaners like me get our way.
Here are all his cinematic releases and how IMDb rate them; and my own views. Please feel free to scoff or agree as you see fit.
Slumdog IMDb 8.7 Me 7 Sunshine IMDb 7.3 Me 9 28 Days later IMDb 7.5 Me 9 Shallow Grave IMDb 7.4 Me 9 Trainspotting IMDb 8.2 Me 5 (this is ranked 182 of all time on IMDb - Holy cow!) The Beach IMDb 6.2 Me 5
For the record, A life Less ordinary picks up 6.4 and Millions gets a 7.2 on IMDb. I haven't seen either, but the bit of ALLO that I saw looked poor.
I like Slumdog a lot I have to say, but its imperfections were too significant to overlook. Much as I hoped it would indeed be the feelgood movie of all time (or whatever the marketing blurb claims) it wasn't, but it was a great visual and aural spectacle that merits a trip to your local cinema. 7 out of 10.