Slumdog Millionaire review February 15, 2009
Posted by amrut in Commentary.trackback
Before watching the movie, I was undecided on whether to pre-like the movie or not. Directed by the director of Trainspotting and scripted by the scriptwriter of The Full Monty are definite pluses. Both were clever British movies. But many friends (interestingly mostly from Bombay) didnt like it. I was unsure.
I liked it a lot. A very good movie, worth seeing more than once. Its a feel good movie. And I felt good.
If you didnt like it, here are a few reasons why you should like it. See if they make any sense to you.
10. Anil Kapoor.
Anil Kapoor is an actor, not a tv commercial guy, not a I-am-50-but-look-I-can-play-a-college-going-kid-romancing-a-18-year old. He is not a party-brawl-er or a to-be-politician. He doesnt even have a blog. So its refreshing to see the original Mr. India execute a good act.
9. The music. Its brilliant. I hope the Academy agrees.
8. The self-replicating top view of Dharavi. In general, the camera angles.
7. The happy kids. Especially in the opening sequence.
6. The survival instint.
In many ways this movie reminded me of City of Gods. I think that if you didnt like Slumdog, then its probably because you are too associated with Mumbai to notice the brilliance of the movie. I seriously recommend that you watch City of Gods and then rewatch Slumdog. (City of Gods is about violence in Rio. Its about two brothers, one becomes a photographer and the other a drug dealer. Its about the survival instinct. But of course, the feel of the movie is totally different. What is probably same is the very raw treatment of the things we like to ignore.)
5. The blinding of beggar kids. The resealing of mineral water bottles with quickfix.
4. Latika’s clothes. The salwars and the jeans. The yellow scarf.
3. The ending sequence. The dance at the VT station.
2. Mumbai rising as the movie progresses. Buildings getting taller. From incredibly dirty slum to “centre of the world”.
1. Latika’s chin.
Update::
1. Slumdog won 8 oscars, including best original score, best song, best screenplay and my favourite — best cinematography.
2. The review of slumdog issues that you shouldnt miss — click here.
Her chin. The point is that it is uneven. And the point is that in most castings, the girls with the uneven chins, the broken ears and the likes are rejected first. So effectively, the point of her chin is that the casting is good, if not great.
i thought she was great looking … many of my friends thought otherwise … movie i thought was good … but not great …. i thought dark knight was a better movie. music was brilliant!
Yes, very pretty.
Dark Knight was, and I dont want to use a comparative word, since its unfair to compare two totally different types of movies. So, anyway, Dark Knight was great too. But why Dark Knight suddenly?
i agree, slumdog is a good movie, but not as good as city of god. city of god is a completely true story, needless to say slumdog is not.
Anil kapoor. Had a lot of respect for him. But i thought he overacted a bit. And his shameless behaviour (jumping out of his seat when his name was mentioned in the gloden globes) just spoilt his image for me. So that is not a valid point! he has done all the dancing around like a teenager that he could do and worse….
Music, rehman, god level!
Regarding her clothes etc. well, it didnt really strike me, ill take ur word for it.
And yeah, good to see a natural looking face in a lead role, makes the story more relatable.
Don’t forget, Danny Boyle also directed ‘Sunshine’
Didn’t notice the clothes until you mentioned them, but yes….and she’s really pretty. Not Ocean’s 12 Zeta-Jones-pretty…better than that (you get the reference right? we saw ocean’s 2 together).
Out of curiosity……do you know what kind of a reaction ‘City of God’ got in Rio? Indians saw this movie cos of the hype and nothing else. If they had based it in the slums of Brazil, it would’ve gone unnoticed here.
ur nothing but a hypocrite, slum dog is descent movie, and its descent not because you have a fetish with the yellow duppatta and jeans, it is so beacuse its descent to watch , I know u in and out so please write something which we can think ur being truthful about
@ Mahesh — heh, yeah Anil Kapur is quite the show-off sometimes.
@ Sahil — Sunshine, yes! Tried googling for reactions for City of God. Couldnt find any negative ones from Brazilian media.
@ retttt — Hypocrite eh. hmm. well, I suppose. If you know me in and out. Bad spellings, no punctuation and a hproxy1 ip. I wonder if I know you though.
sorry for the poor grammer,
I have just been informed, commenting on your blog or even visting it is seen as sucking up, by your peer group. bbye
Grammar, not grammer. Use firefox, for the spell check.
!!?? sucking up? to me? for what joy?
who is this peer group??
what would anyone gain by sucking up to me?
I must say that the movie is really different from others.The script was very intelligently connected with present life and past life.You will find very rare instances where such a mix of “story” and “real life” is done.I love every actors’ performances and also appreciated how the kids acted too naturally.Overall I think this movie should be rated 4.5/5.This movie has now become one of my evergreen favorites!
@amrut : all ur frnds, moment u say I read amrut’s blog they start laughing , ” macchi why da, why suck up da”. Clue is in whats being quoted
Ah that way. I still dont why its ’sucking up’. I have nothing to offer. But, yeah, I kinda agree. I have friends who dont read my blog or dont like to read my blog. Thats okay… what do they know… I shall write here as long as the counter rolls. There is only so much that one can worry about criticism or ridicule… EOD, I like writing my blog, which is why I write my blog. Not because I think I am correct or not because I want you to think I am correct. Fair?
“what would anyone gain by sucking up to me?”
“I have nothing to offer. ”
Now, you are talking some sense Amrutash!
And we are having this conversation on my blog, why?
theres more to latika’s yellow scarf . read at http://babusyed.blogspot.com/
this is one of the most amazing movies ive ever watched it funny inspiring a definte work of art its truly and amazing love story
@ Babu — very interesting post.
@ Tom McRae —
süper bi filmdi hayran kaldım