What did everyone saw on this?

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2010)

'Slumdog Millionaire' was, without a doubt, the most critically acclaimed movie of 2008. Danny Boyle's picture simply won eight Oscars (including for Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay) and nominated to two others. It also won seven BAFTAs (also, including Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay) and four Golden Globes, along with tons of other awards, becoming the first movie since Steven Spielberg's 1993 'Schindler's List' to win Best Picture at the Oscars, the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes. The problem is - I'm still trying to figure it out what did all those critics and the audience saw on this movie?
'Slumdog Millionaire' tells the story of Jamal Mailk (Dev Patel), a Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums and is participating on a TV program called "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?". In the break of the program, he is accused and arrested of cheating. While he is being interrogated, events from his life are shown, explaining why he knows the answers to all the questions of the program. The Oscar-winning Screenplay is loosely based on a novel by Vikas Swarup and adapted for the big screen by Simon Beaufoy. Through Jamal's story, the movie denounces the hard life in India's slums, showing all the dangers of that little kids suffer when they're alone. But the movie only shows a poor and filthy India, that's why many people are gonna have wrong ideas about the country because of this movie. Even though the story gives the possibility to show a nice adventure, with Jamal, his brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) and a girl named Latika (Freida Pinto) trying to survive in the slums, it is hardly believable. It's impressing how everything in Jamal's life sort of conspires for him to know the answers, how he remembers his childhood in so many details and how the questions are all related to his life. This bugged me throughout the whole movie, but the final question was the most forced one. I'm not going to spoil it here, but you'll see how nonsense it is. I know the basic plot of the movie is how a kid from the slums can win a TV game-show, but that's where I have the problem with.
The acting here is a little under average. All the supporting cast does an average job, with the exception of Anil Kapoor, that was very nice as the game-show host. The three main characters are portrayed at three different ages here. Surprisingly, the best members of the cast were the little kids. Even though most of the cast are newcomers, the kids steal all your attention here. All three of them, portraying Jamal, Salim and Latika, are great, and give strong performances. The not-so-little kids that portrayed the three of them in an early-teen age were fine also. The ones that had more recognition were, of course, the actors portraying them in the late-teen age. They were the ones with more screen-time, but not of them were really good. Madhur Mittal was kinda bad as older Salim, so was Freida Pinto as older Latika. And even the most acclaimed one, Dev Patel, wasn't really good. Even though he got a few nominations for his role in this movie, his performance could've better.
Undoubtedly (or at least in my opinion) the strongest point of 'Slumdog Millionaire was the directing. Danny Boyle does an excellent job directing this picture. If it's not his best work thus far, since he was also excellent in both 'Trainspotting' and '28 Days Later...', it's certainly one of the best. The camera work he uses in the movie is incredible, getting some unbelievable shots. His job in the transition of each scene is also remarkable. Another good thing that I enjoyed on Mr. Boyle's job were the montages, that served to make the movie much less boring. The only thing that I didn't like on his work was the end credits. After all the events depicted in the movie, every actor started dancing on a train station to the sound of A.R. Rahman's original Oscar-winning song 'Jai Ho'. I know it was meant to be a tribute to the Bollywood pictures, but in my opinion it ruined the movie completely. Your good and old black end credits were just fine, thanks.
Chris Dickens was another one that really deserved the Oscar award he got. His editing work is as remarkable as Danny Boyle's directing one. If it wasn't for him, the montages and the shot transitions weren't gonna be as good as they are. Anthony Mantle's Oscar-winning job on the cinematography was excellent. The yellow tones in every scene really set the mood for what's to come, and make the movie feels like India. You get some beautiful shots of India's famous locations and landscapes, like the internationally famous Taj Mahal (of course they had to show it). One quite important thing on 'Slumdog Millionaire' is the Soundtrack. A.R. Rahman composed several songs for this movie, and they are all quite good. Aside from the montages, the movie also utilizes those songs in a very, almost surgically put way. The only time that the music didn't serve well was in the end credits.
Overral, 'Slumdog Millionaire' is not a bad movie. Is not a bad movie at all. Danny Boyle's directing work was of the his best so far, the editing is great, so is the cinematography and the Soundtrack. But the naive writing, the hardly-believable storyline and the poor acting keeps this movie alway from being a masterpiece. And the dancing at the end credits served to make the movie worse than it is, ruining the movie's mood completely. So, with all this, I'm still trying to understand: What did everyone saw on this? Even though 2008 wasn't exactly the best year for movie-making, with the writer's strike and all, there certainly were better choices for the Oscars, the BAFTAs, or whatever awards you mention, than this picture.
6/10