Not very realistic, though very well shot

Rating: 7/10 (9 June 2009)

I watched this movie when it debuted at the box office but didn't bother writing a review till now. The movie was entertaining on all fronts, just all this critical acclaim isn't rightfully earned. A lot of things shown in the movie are just very unrealistic, I know this because I am Indian myself.
First things first, performances were very refreshing. Of course I knew most of the actors as I've seen them on screen while growing up. (Anil Kapoor/Saurabh Sukhla/Mahesh Manjrekar/Irffan Khan, all of them were good. Dev Patel as Jamal did a fine job, he is not a thorough looker, but that is what the role demanded. Freida Pinto as Latika was good too, though she needs to polish her acting skills more. Madhur Mittal as Salim was outstanding, I haven't really seen him before but he sure has command over acting. All the kids were absolutely amazing, they acted so natural without having acting classes or whatsoever. Superb! Out of all the younger actors, in my opinion Tanay Chheda stood out as the strongest.
Music was of course outstanding, because the music has been done by maestro A.R.Rahman, I have always been a fan of him, though this is not his best work, I'm glad he got an Oscar for his composition, and made his name a trademark in the market of international music. Jai Ho and Ringa Ringa are absolutely foot-tappable numbers.
Now the bad points... I understand the kids later grew up at places where tourism is a big thing, so they learned English. But it is certainly not realistic that the police cops were also talking in English to Jamal when he was being questioned, not just them... almost everybody was talking English. It would have been much better if they would have just talked in Hindi with included subtitles for viewers. Instead of letting the protagonists talk in English because it looks better than subtitles, that made it totally fake.
Second thing... Kaun Banega Crorepati? (Or Who wants to be a millionaire?) was never a Live thing on TV, sure, of course I understand that they can make it live because someone has reached the last 3 questions, but they should have somehow narrated that in the story, just demands a little creativity.
Thirdly, Salims character should have been written better. It still remains unclear/confusing why he changed in the last moment. It would have been better if Danny would have let Salim converse with Jamal first (On the phone even..) that he realised his mistakes and is about to make up for everything.
These three things caused me to cut three points off the total mark for Slumdog Millionaire. The hype isn't really needed, its a fine product, but not flawless.
:) Overall : Watch Slumdog Millionaire if you love good cinema! Thumbs up!