who am i to say anything...

Rating: 3/10 (27 January 2009)

to those non-Indians and the conformist Indians here's a little bit of perspective...
when i write what i have to say some of you may think that I've been hurt by the negative depiction of Mumbai... well, not at all, actually i was hoping for a more gritty, realistic, up-close depiction rather than a 'long-shot' impersonal superficial one...
slum-dog millionaire is not a great film, slum-dog millionaire is not a good film. it's an OK film.
first the good things... cinematography is edgy and mind-blowing... editing is razor sharp... sound design is amazing...
but,
it is very hard to digest slum kids talking in English, harder still to digest is their (kind of) fake UK accent. also the cops speaking in English, the local mafia speaking in English...
the acting (in Hindi) of Salim and Jamaal though over-the-top, is passable. but once they grow up and start speaking in English, it's pathetic.
the story which is basically a love story between Jamaal and Latika is lost in the gimmicky impersonal screenplay and you don't connect... actually you don't connect with any character and not because the characters are dark but because neither the lines nor the acting are good. and Danny Boyle knows this and that's why the long-shots and the silhouettes and the characters-in-dark treatment to the film. Dev Patel has only one expression on his face when he is on the 'chair'. Anil Kapoor is irritatingly snobbish, Mahesh Manjrekar is irritating, Freida pinto is irritating... Irrfan Khan and Saurabh Shukla are passable...
Rehman's music is a mix of few average tunes from the great A. R. Rehman library. he's given great music, absolutely great music in infinite Hindi, Tamil films... so if he gets the Oscar, it'll be for his great compositions over the years and not for the average 'slum-dog..' album. ditto for the lyrics of Gulzar...
the main problem in the film is the lack of emotional attachment one feels with the film... i mean when Salim suddenly changes his heart or when he dies in the bath-tub filled with currency, we don't feel anything... when Jamaal finally gets Latika, we don't feel anything... when Salim kills Maman, we don't feel anything... when the film ends we don't feel anything (except irritation)...
the film is an amazingly shot and stylishly edited set of gimmicks which have been forcibly interwoven in to a very convenient story...
but when the world says that it's brilliant cinema, who am i to say anything... and if the world enjoys the irritating yet laughable ( a bad wannabe Bollywood) song and dance sequence in the end, who am i to say anything...