A crowd-pleaser for the less discriminating.

Rating: 7/10 (24 January 2009)

A young man from an Indian slum wins millions from a trivia game show but is tortured and detained by police on suspicion of fraud. In order to prove his innocence, he recounts his life story and how its incidental details informed each correct answer.
Director Danny Boyle complements this fresh narrative structure with an effusive energy, creating mystery and exciting melodrama. But as the mystery dissolves with exposition, the structure turns predictable and soon collapses in its redundancy. What remains is a long yarn of melodramatic talessome exciting, some heavy-handed but when tallied up, it's fatiguing. Still, the film manages a sweet, uplifting resolution; it's a crowd-pleaser for the less discriminating.