It's not supposed to be in his experience

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2016)

Slumdog Millionaire which earned 8 Oscars including a Best Picture has some elements of a couple of other films that I liked. It also has no nominations in the acting categories.
For the latter I think it's a combined performance. Protagonist Dev Patel whose life we see in flashback gives a performance with two other juvenile actors. It's a combined look at his life so I think no one actor could or should be credited that way. In fact Patel is telling his life in the interrogation room of a police station.
Patel is a slum kid referred to as slumdogs by the Indian cops. He's a guest on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and he's one answer away from the all or nothing grand prize jackpot. He's hauled away and interrogated by the Mumbai cops who just don't believe some slum kid from Mumbai could know things like who is on the American hundred dollar bill and who invented the revolver. But it turns out that as they question him and rather brutally at times, he's acquired this trivial pursuit type knowledge through life experience.
I was so reminded of Stand And Deliver when the cops haul away Dev Patel because they won't believe some uneducated slumdog kid could know so much. If you remember Edward James Olmos's math class all got retested with strict monitoring to prove they were the real deal.
As for the scenes of Indian life and what the ragamuffin kids go through the influence of the Brazilian film Pixote is clearly visible. Occidental director Danny Boyle did a great job of capturing the overpopulation and dire poverty so omnipresent in the world's largest democracy. If population trends keep going India may well pass China as the world's largest country.
With a Best Picture Oscar, the Indian cinema has clearly arrived on the American consciousness if nowhere else. Oscars tend to do that with Americans.