Reviews by Matt

I am a movie buff. I look at many movie websites on a daily basis. I listen to movie/dvd podcasts. I keep myself up to date on all the big movies and movie news because it is something I enjoy. During awards season I read and hear about a lot of the Oscar hopefuls. This year the ones I have heard a lot about are “The Wrestler,” “Doubt,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk,” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” just to name a few. While I want to see all of these, none interested me more than “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is just one question away from winning 20 million rupees on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” He would be the first person to win the show’s top prize. By all accounts he should not be there. He is a slumdog. He grew up in one of the slums in India. Society does not expect much of him and he will not amount to anything. So how did he get there?

The answers to all the questions lie somewhere in his past. From watching his mother get murdered to life in an orphanage where he was exploited to make money to riding the rails with his brother to scamming tourists. In other words: destiny.

One of the things I loved about this movie was how it was edited. It is not something I usually talk about in my reviews but it played a huge part in my enjoyment of the movie. The movie opens with Jamal being questioned by the police. He is suspected of cheating. As is pointed out to him, doctors and lawyers have never gotten past 60,000. He and the police watch the tape of the show and the police ask him how he knew that. He then tells them how and the focus shifts to the past and we see the event in Jamal’s life where the answer was. I liked this shift in time and it made the story telling all the more interesting.

The only reason Jamal goes on the show is the hope that Latika is watching. Jamal, Salim and Latika live together when they are orphaned. Latika does not make the escape from the orphanage with them, but Jamal still remembers her. He runs into her a few more times as he grows up and still loves her as much as he did when he first saw her. One time he sees she is watching “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and that is why he goes on the show. He hopes that if he stays on long enough that she will see him and they can be together.

Small side note. This should not have been rated “R.” There is hardly any offensive language and I have seen more violent and disturbing images in PG-13 movies—“The Dark Knight” comes to mind.

I was worried that the hype behind Slumdog Millionaire” would taint my viewing of it. I worried that if I did not like it that I was missing something. At first I was slightly disappointed, but as I thought about the movie I loved it more and more. I was able to enjoy it for what it was and see why the critics loved it. I can only recall one other time in over 100 reviews that I have ever said that the reader should see the movie. I like to let them decide that for themselves. Not this time folks: go see this movie. You will thank me later.



9 out of 10
Rated R for some violence, disturbing images and language.
120 min