Even With Its Weaknesses, This Movie Was Moving and Inspiring

Rating: 8/10 (20 January 2019)

30 January 2009. It's hard not to admit that "Slumdog Millionaire" can grow on some people. Even with its irritating, jarring, and perhaps unnecessary flashback approach along with underdeveloped characters and subtext, this movie remains riveting, emotionally satisfying, gritty, and overall well-executed. The music stands out as a fantastic spicy flavor of energetic and captivating background melodies. The flaws in this movie occur with its confusing opening, its somewhat glossing over a number of the characters only to become stereotypes like the head criminal boss and the show host. There is lost motivational and background material on most of the characters, they're feelings, thoughts for their actions as they changed over time. Where and why would anybody and how could somebody give $100 to a blind boy? Where does a gun just come from? There are a number of fascinating cultural topics that are assumed or just overlooked and given a fast go-over, the caste system for example is thrown into the movie graphically, but never really explored in depth. A linear chronological presentation may have been a better approach as well as the "gimmick" of a game show may not have really been necessary to really bring this movie into classic fruition. For such flaws, this movie may not been classic status, but it remains an compelling and engrossing movie nonetheless. 8/10.