Overrated, overrated, overrated.

Rating: 5/10 (6 February 2009)

Slumdog Millionaire is one of the most overrated movies I have ever seen. It proves to us once again, that almost any film that 'exposes' the bleakness of life in third world countries/countries of political instability, scores massively with the blissfully ignorant Western audiences.
The first half of the film is pretty good, in all fairness. The child artists do a fantastic job, and there are ample bizarre and hilarious moments. However, the flaws are just too many to ignore, especially for a person who is well-acquainted with the situation in these places. The way the slum children speak English is just bizarre. They have had no decent education, yet they speak as freely as any kid coming from an affluent family, incorporating words like 'gonna', 'dude' and 'cool'.(Yet, they don't know what the Taj Mahal is, which every uneducated bloke in every little village knows about). They are supposed to be Muslim, yet their mom wears a sari. Just unnatural. The young Jamal meets a beggar in a subway, who recognizes him immediately, and knows who Benjamin Franklin is.
As far as predictability and disjointedness, this film takes the cake, the baker, and the bakery. One moment he is running around near the Taj Mahal, another he is looking for his 'lost love'. They are reunited, and then separated again for no rhyme or reason. The grown-up Jamal, I'm sorry to say, doesn't do a convincing job at all. His British accent comes out in spurts, making the improbable sound impossible. And then you have the villains. Mamman, Latika's husband, the host of the show- are all the absolute-evil types. One would think someone gives them a cookie for every evil laugh and lecherous comment they pass. The gangster is a bad, bad man, so he has to hang out with call-girls ALL the bloody time. Lechery is the only common quality in evil people, didn't you know? Love story is clichéd as usual, and the drama resembles that of any B-grade Bollywood movie, I kid you not. His brother Salim, is another weird character. For some very strange reason, he fills a bathtub with money and lies down in it with a gun while he waits for his nemesis.
And the icing on the cake- The song and dance sequence at the end. Why? Why? Why? No reason- just cheap entertainment, the type you see in EVERY Bollywood film. So finally, everything works out for our friend Jamal, with the whole nation behind him, and everybody's happy. Except the bad guys of course. All the bad guys lose.
No it's not as bad as I make it sound. However, does it deserve Oscar nominations? Hell no. So many Bollywood films like this one are made every month. Is this one so special just because Danny Boyle is the director? Probably.