Most of the way an exhilarating, visually blinding rags-to-riches tale!

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2010)

In contemporary Mumbai, teenage telemarketing company clerk Jamal gets a shot at winning the jackpot on the famous TV quiz show "Who wants to be a millionaire"... and after suspicions of how a poor, uneducated slumdog like him can get so far, he is arrested, accused of cheating.
Oscar-winning, widely praised urban rags-to-riches story gets a tremendous boost from the ingenious, dream-like (yet not too unrealistic) idea of connecting Jamal's ability to know the answers with crucial details of his hard childhood as an orphan, beggar and petty thief. Most of the time an exhilarating movie, filled with both harrowing and joyful scenes of impoverished street children's conditions.
Told like a blindingly visual tornado, swirlingly paced, edited and photographed, in the similar style - and in bits, theme - of "City of God". It could have used more of that latter film's jagged edge, though, as the overall impact is marred by slightly sugary and conventional finale and the one-dimensionality of surrounding characters: The bad guys are extremely bad, and the role of Latika is unfortunately diminished into a flat love interest without a personality of her own. Still extremely sympathetic and an interesting comparison to "Salaam Bombay".
7 out of 10 from Ozjeppe