Boyle for the Oscar!

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2009)

Before I start, I personally think that Christopher Nolan and the Dark Knight should win the awards for Best Director and Best Film, but since its are not nominated my vote for Best Director is for Danny Boyle, the brilliant director of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Sunshine.
Slumdog Millionaire has a bit of everything, it has moments of comedy, gangsters, religious tensions and violence and the themes and hope.
The basic plot of the film is Jamel (Dev Patel/Ayush Mahesh Khedekar/Tanay Chheda), an 18-year-old call-centre workers from Mumbai and is one question away from winning 20 Million Rupees on India's version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. He is arrested and tortured by the police and the film is told in flash backs about how he knew all the answers. It tells how Jamel grew up in Dharavi, the slums of Mumbai where he lives with bullying older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal/Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail/Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala). Their mother is killed during a attack by Hindu extremists because she was Muslim. It tells how they went to an orphanage with Lakita (Freida Pinto/Rubiana Ali/Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar), an orphan girl, which was run by a gangster who used the children to make money. It then shows Jamel and Salim ran away to Dephi and worked at the Taj Mahal in an unofficial capacity. After living as street children Jamel and Salim go back to Mumbai to free Lakita who is trapped with the gangsters. Salim himself ends up as a gangster whilst tries to live a normal life working in the Call Centre.
It is the direction which is best element of the film. You get to feel the violence, the tension and the streets. They are great moments within this film, such as during the attack in the slums someone throws a rock at the camera and breaks the lens. I also personally enjoyed Jamel's tour of the Taj Mahal. The acting is good and it is a well written film: Simon Beaufoy has a good shot at best Adapted Screenplay. However, the marketing for Slumdog Millionaire as 'the feel good film of the year' is misleading. It is grim, it is bloody, but it makes the film work. I personally never really like Bollywood film; I find them too cheery and I don't like the singing and dancing in the films. What Boyle did was bring in British Social Realism which I think was needed. I hope more films from India take this approach.
Good luck to this film in the BAFTAs and Oscars.