A win for mediocrity and political correctness...

Rating: 5/10 (11 April 2009)

I was afraid of that. Coming to watch an hyped film is always a worry, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the level of disappointment this movie brought on me.
I find it hard to explain where this movie fails because it does it spectacularly on many levels.
Storyline. You have seen it all before. Honestly, you did. If you read Charles Dickens as a child (Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby) then you have read the script for this movie. And you probably saw it in the movies too, only this time you have also seen it on the small screen at home, if you ever watched "Who wants to be a millionaire". It's plain, it's boring, and it's been done before.
Acting. B-grade says it all. Honestly, all Dev Patel had to do was act dumb, and he excelled at that. Then of course, there were the kids, but with kids you either get it wrong or right, there is no midway, and this time thankfully Boyle got it right.
Score. I couldn't feel that it contributed to anything. Not a fan of Indian music, but I wouldn't care of the music's origins if it did anything to enhance the experience of watching the movie, and the truth is - it didn't. In fact, if I could turn the music off, I don't believe it would have made any difference at all.
Camera work. OK, this is somewhat the saving grace, although in a visually rich environment of India it is very hard to mess up camera work, which means that the expectations are very high. And yet again, it is plain, unimaginative, and very very "play it safe".
Bottom line. The Oscars it received enshrine the mediocrity through revolting political correctness. What a shame. It's boring. It's unimaginative. If you ever read classical novels, you'd have read it all before. And besides the Indian setting, there is absolutely nothing that makes this movie stand out from thousands more like it, including Hallmark low-budget adaptations. Avoid, if you can get over the hype. Or go see it, just to be able to reply "Yes, I did see it, can we talk about something else now?" to an excited colleague at work.