If you can neglect a few faults, it is gritty and dramatic

Rating: 6/10 (20 August 2014)

Yes it won Oscars. It was special because of the international crew working on it. As a movie (in spite of Best Motion Picture Oscar), I beg to differ. The storyline is typical of many Hindi films.
The storytelling style was good and so was the acting... except the funny situation where the children abruptly switch wholly to English once they are teens. In a normal middle class society, education happens in stages. And the society shown there is of the class that normally does not get that many privileges. If we take too long to learn to speak fluently through a well-funded scholastic association; then it is baffling how it takes much less for the kids in here to switch tongues completely.
Bear in mind, they were peddling, hawking, stealing and living off the land. As a tour guide, OK; but even among your friends, ALWAYS, this is silly. There are 2 strong reasons why the Hindi dubbed edition was more successful in India than the original - 1. a large section of the populace had problem with the English language. 2. a section of the populace who had no problem with either Hindi or English could identify and empathise more with the characters when they spoke in Hindi just because the alternative sounded unnatural for the context.
Other than this major grudge and the sexualisation of the song 'Jai Ho' by PCD, WHICH DID GOD KNOWS WHAT WITHE ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE SONG... and A.R.Rahman's best work in that year being Jodhaa Akbar, which is miles ahead in music than SM ( but it was a wholly Indian film ) the movie is OK