Not great - but far better than it sounds

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2009)

On the face of it, this British made film (winner of a best picture Oscar) sounds a terrible mixture of unbelievable melodrama, full of improbable coincidences, and western condescension. A teenage boy, raised on India's awful slums, manage to win millions in a tacky quiz show by answering all the questions, neither of them terrible hard. He knows the answers, not from having read about them, but from having learned in life about them (for example, he knows who invented the revolver from a shootout he was once involved). From the first scene, where the protagonist is tortured with electric wires to find out if he's a cheat, to the very end, when his lifelong female friend crosses a busy street to reach a cell phone in order to tell him in extremis the answer that will let him win the show, the whole film is ridiculous, sentimental, manipulative, condescending...and yet, this film is nowhere as bad as it sounds, and despite all its low punches, it is eminently watchable. Maybe this has to do with the actor's earnest performances, but this film ends up reaching a deeper emotional chord than it should have. Recommended with reservations.