Top ten reasons Slumdog Millionaire is a mediocre movie:

Rating: 6/10 (9 April 2009)

(With redeeming qualities in cinematography, acting, music and sharp editing.)
(And please spare me the hate mail.)
10. 20,000,000 rupees is "only" about $411,000.
9. No toilet paper in the outhouses.
8. All the kids are healthy looking with nice teeth.
7. Latika experiences no sexual abuse!
6. No (gaunt) slum dogs are seen.
5. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is not a live show in India.
4. After step five the contestant does not lose "everything" with a wrong answer.
3. The questions were in chronological order of his life!
2. Police in India TORTURE people if they think they're cheating TV shows?
1. Giving a $100 bill to Arvind would be giving it to the hated men who blinded him.
Additionally I wonder: Did the copyright owners of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" okay this? I mean, would Regis Philbin or Meredith Vieira try to cheat a contestant? Would the producers want a ratings sensation to lose?
Is it okay to celebrate a movie that entertains the privileged with a rose-colored view of poverty and overpopulation?
Good, however, is a City of God/Bollywood/fairytale film made for the poor of India. Only problem is this film just exploits them by water coloring over the squalor of their wretched lives. And, incidentally, by the way things are going, there is an enormous mountain of poverty to come worldwide, degrading much of humanity.
(But, hey, I just got the DVD to be entertained. I don't need to hear about the troubles of the world.)
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)