Saturday, 27 December 2008 05:43 pm
Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire
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deckardcanineFinally saw a last-quarter 2008 release likely to get awards. And it is indeed excellent in the estimation of me, my parents, my sister, and her boyfriend.
WARNING: It's gritty. More than half the movie focuses on the Bombay/Mumbai slums with their ugly filth, violent crime, and impoverished orphans. The sort of thing that gets you rooting for kids to get away with theft and lies, because they have little choice and it's still not as bad as what many others are doing.
MERCIFULLY: You shouldn't leave feeling worse than when you came in. There's enough pleasant stuff, especially at the end.
WARNING: Time jumps abound. The film alternates among the protagonist's general past, his first night on India's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", and his time in brutal custody on suspicion of cheating. (Might I add that the Indian show alterations leave something to be desired and the host makes Regis look sweet.)
MERCIFULLY: The jumps are never hard to follow.
WARNING: Some parts use subtitles, whether for an actual foreign language or for thickly accented English.
MERCIFULLY: They are stylized subtitles, appearing on colored rectangles not usually at the bottom of the screen (so perhaps technically not sub-titles). Pretty cool and helpful, especially if you're sitting behind a tall person. Oh, and the translation isn't stilted either.
WARNING: For a serious story, it relies on a high number of unlikely coincidences.
MERCIFULLY: Only the gestalt is hard to buy; the individual scenes are credible enough. And unlike Crash, it's big on a Muslim concept of destiny, so the contrivance can be freely admitted: "It is written."
In tangential news, I recently saw another great movie set in India: Black Narcissus. Alas, I did not think in time to follow it immediately with White Oleander. Or even The Purple Rose of Cairo.
WARNING: It's gritty. More than half the movie focuses on the Bombay/Mumbai slums with their ugly filth, violent crime, and impoverished orphans. The sort of thing that gets you rooting for kids to get away with theft and lies, because they have little choice and it's still not as bad as what many others are doing.
MERCIFULLY: You shouldn't leave feeling worse than when you came in. There's enough pleasant stuff, especially at the end.
WARNING: Time jumps abound. The film alternates among the protagonist's general past, his first night on India's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", and his time in brutal custody on suspicion of cheating. (Might I add that the Indian show alterations leave something to be desired and the host makes Regis look sweet.)
MERCIFULLY: The jumps are never hard to follow.
WARNING: Some parts use subtitles, whether for an actual foreign language or for thickly accented English.
MERCIFULLY: They are stylized subtitles, appearing on colored rectangles not usually at the bottom of the screen (so perhaps technically not sub-titles). Pretty cool and helpful, especially if you're sitting behind a tall person. Oh, and the translation isn't stilted either.
WARNING: For a serious story, it relies on a high number of unlikely coincidences.
MERCIFULLY: Only the gestalt is hard to buy; the individual scenes are credible enough. And unlike Crash, it's big on a Muslim concept of destiny, so the contrivance can be freely admitted: "It is written."
In tangential news, I recently saw another great movie set in India: Black Narcissus. Alas, I did not think in time to follow it immediately with White Oleander. Or even The Purple Rose of Cairo.