Great images, contrived, asinine plot - "exploitation" film?

Rating: 2/10 (2 December 2008)

I usually like Danny Boyle films for content, subtext, and technical style, but I can't remember the last time that a supposedly "serious" movie relied on so many contrived plot coincidences to build and resolve suspense. This movie was exotic and pretty but unbelievable, empty and asinine.
Please don't take seriously its depiction of beautiful, exotic 3rd world poverty. Instead this is a genre mash-up of the good brother/bad brother gangster movie with the Dickensian orphan rags-to-riches story. It does pretty well on those modest terms, but it's a colorful, violent fantasy, not a serious expose or a National Geographic documentary.
The use of police torture to build suspense in the first act (not a spoiler - these are the opening sequences of the film); stylized violence against children; reliance on prettified poverty and the exotic "other"; the gratuitous resolution of the "bad" brother's story arc: you know what? If this movie had been made in the 70s it would have been set in Harlem and today we'd call it "blaxploitation." This movie is about on the level with "Shaft" and "Superfly." There's just something about setting it in India that has blinded certain white audiences to the fact that this is a pretty stupid movie.
That said, Freida Pinto - and much of the movie - is stunningly beautiful to look at.