A very interesting and entertaining movie

Rating: 8/10 (21 February 2009)

I am very happy to see the sudden critical acceptation director Danny Boyle is getting for Slumdog Millionaire,because I have liked his entire filmography (with the exception of The Beach) and I feel that many of his films have been unfairly underrated for not adjusting to the spectators' expectations.Nobody denies the greatness from Trainspotting but his also very interesting films Shallow Grave,A Life Less Ordinary,28 Days Later and Sunshine were underrated from my point of view.Slumdog Millionaire is another very interesting and entertaining film from Boyle which,in spite of not being excellent,it is near from being.During the first half hour from the movie,it disappointed me its repetitive structure and the convenient way of how any question from the programme is magically related to a past event of the main character's life.However,that fail is compensated a little bit because when I started thinking about the movie,I noted that was made with the intention of showing the chaotic life in India,from the childhood from the kids of Mumbai to the impact the occidental culture has had on that country.Another function from those vignettes is showing the relationship between three young people during their unpredictable lives on which their separations are as important as the moments they are together.That is a very good strategy,because it makes the screenplay richer but at the same time,I think that aspect could have been worked a little bit better,because it reminded me to the style shown in the extraordinary movie City of God,which used that strategy a little bit better.However,the charisma from the actors and their honest performances emotionally connect to the spectator,and that made Slumdog Millionaire to provoke an unusual emotional impact on me.Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy used a very ingenious trick : starting the movie with what it seems a posterior event to the TV programme,suggesting the final result and making us believe that he killed us any suspense.However,that was only an intelligent manipulation from Beaufoy because,near the ending,nothing is as it seemed and the film gets incredibly tense until it leads to a very satisfactory conclusion.Boyle's dynamic direction perfectly complements the tone from the movie.It is obvious his intention was not emulating the narrative language from Bollywood (with the exception of the final credits) but incorporating his style to the exotic Indian sensibility,and it is a testimony to his extraordinary talent that so different films like Sunshine (human sci-fi),A Life Less Ordinary (a violent and modern fairytale),28 Days Later (horror for the new millennium) and now Slumdog Millionaire show the exact same vision.Slumdog Millionaire is not Boyle's best film (by my point of view,that one is still Trainspotting) but still,I can recommend this movie with confidence because it kept me very entertained and interested,at the same time it exposed a very good message.
Rating:8.5