I don’t think I’m alone when I say that when I first heard the premise of this movie, I thought, “I think I’ll be skipping that one.” The story of a teenage Indian boy who becomes a contestant on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” in order to try and find the woman he loves? Eh, not so much, thanks. But as the reviews started to surface, I couldn’t help but notice that it was becoming a sleeper hit due to the strong word of mouth. And as it turns out, Slumdog Millionaire is one of the best films I’ve seen all year.
To expound further on the plot, Jamal Malik (played with enthusiasm by the still very green Dev Patel) gets a once in a lifetime to chance to be on a game show that, seemingly, is watched by pretty much every person in India. After one episode in which he gets within one question of winning 20 million rupees, he’s taken into police custody after he’s thought to be cheating. During the inquisition, he unravels the story of his life in order to prove that he didn’t cheat and he genuinely knew the answers. To be honest, I just typed that out and after reading it a few times, that still sounds boring to me but trust me when I tell you that for the full 120 minutes, I was fully engrossed in the story and the intricacy with which it unraveled.
In my last review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I mentioned that the director, David Fincher, is synonymous with excellent filmmaking and the same can now be said of the director of Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle. Ever since his breakout film Trainspotting, he’s only done a handful of movies but they’ve all been diverse and interesting choices. Trainspotting is about drug addiction, 28 Days Later is about zombies, and Sunshine is a sci-fi flick, to name the highlights. Though each of these films are very diverse in theme, he handles each one like a seasoned director but also manages to bring a fresh and exciting feel to each project. And I think the same can be said of this film because when it’s all said and done, it’s really just a love story. Another reason I loved this movie so much is it proves you don’t need much to make a good movie. For example, my first review on this blog was for a film entitled The Day the Earth Stood Still, which was a giant steaming pile and it cost $80 million to make and had actors everyone has heard of. Slumdog Millionaire only cost $15 million, had no marquee names and when you watch it, you aren’t thinking to yourself, “I wonder if it would be worth it to gouge my eyes instead of waiting another hour and a half for this movie to be over” or “I wonder if the theater can give me back my time in addition to my money.” This movie proves that at the center of every good movie is a compelling plot and character development; everything else should only be used to serve those two things.
Captain Cinema Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.
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