Slumdog Millionaire is a brilliant., genre jumping revelation

Rating: 9/10 (29 November 2008)

Slumdog Millionaire is a genre jumping revelation that comes across as bizarrely plausible when events that seem impossible are contextualised in flashbacks that illustrate the life of our 18 year-old hero Jamal (Dev Patel), an orphan from the slums of Mumbai. Jamal has entered the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" in an effort to contact his lost love Latika (Freida Pinto). Much is made of Jamal's lowly status as a chai wallah (tea boy) at one of Mumbai's many call centres.This underdog status helps him to win the hearts of the viewing audience but arouses suspicion from the show's host, who pulls strings and has Jamal arrested and savagely interrogated when the show breaks at the end of the day's episode. Slumdog Millionaire jumps back and forward in time illustrating the parts of Jamal's life experience that have taught him the information he needed to correctly answer questions on the show. Much kudos must go to the cast and crew for uniformly excellent performances, filmed in often harsh and immensely difficult circumstances. Resourceful and resilient, once orphaned at a young age in a religious uprising, Jamal and his older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) travel widely in their quest for safety and survival. The boy's hair-raising, and often hilarious, exploits on Indian railways and at the Taj Mahal are played out against marvelous scenery. Slumdog Millionaire successfully combines many genres such as history, 'road' trip, crime, coming of age, romance and quiz. All are deftly handled and interwoven in a total package that is hard to fault. Stay through the closing credits and you even get a Bollywood style dance number! Brilliant.