Indian superstar A.R. Rahman's soundtrack throbs seductively
The Movie Review: 'Slumdog Millionaire' by Christopher Orr Danny Boyle's joyful trip to the slums of Mumbai is one of the year's best films. Post Date Wednesday, November 12, 2008 DISCUSS ARTICLE [3] | PRINT | EMAIL ARTICLE Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle's captivating new film, is structured as a riddle: How is it that 18-year-old Jamal (Dev Patel), a penniless orphan--i.e., "slumdog"--from the streets of Mumbai, could answer trivia question after trivia question correctly on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" en route to a shot at the 20 million rupee jackpot? Is he a genius? Is he cheating? View Larger Image 'Slumdog Millionaire' Courtesy of Fox Searchlight RELATED CONTENT Orr (11/7/2008): The Movie Review: 'Synecdoche, New York' Orr (10/31/2008): The Movie Review: 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno' Orr (10/24/08): Angelina Jolie's Wanna-Be Oscar Bait May Be The Worst Movie Of The Year The riddle is answered with a series of flashbacks to Jamal's boyhood, in which reside the seeds of his hard-won knowledge. He knows, for instance, who the star of the 1973 film Zanjeer was--Amitabh Bachchan, for those of you scoring at home--because Bachchan was his favorite star when he was little. How much did he love Bachchan? When the actor made a publicity stop in Mumbai, and Jamal's brother Salim (played when grown by Madhur Mittal) locked him in a stilted outhouse, he exited the only way he could: straight down, a fecal pilgrimage that makes Ewan McGregor's plunge into the Worst Toilet in Scotland in Boyle's Trainspotting look like a dip in the Caribbean. When the boy emerges exultant from the muck, he makes a beeline for the scrum surrounding his idol Bachchan, bouncing off (and soiling) his fellow fans like a subcontinental variation on Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo. Rewarded with an autographed photo, he holds it aloft with all the pride of an Olympic athlete brandishing a medal. This is not the last time we see the lengths to which Jamal will go for love. Subsequent flashbacks veer more toward tragedy than farce: the Hindu riots from which Jamal and Salim barely escape with their lives; the boys' recruitment and near-mutilation by the leader of an army of child-beggars; Salim's nascent career as a Mumbai gangster. Yet even at its most harrowing and heartbreaking, Slumdog Millionaire is never less than deliriously entertaining. Working from a script by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty), Boyle stages every scene with verve and brio, confidently flashing forward and back from Jamal's boyhood to his quiz-show appearance to his mid-game interrogation by a police inspector (Irrfan Khan) who suspects him of cheating. Throughout it all, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle's camera bounces giddily through the tin-roofed shanties of Mumbai, while Indian superstar A.R. Rahman's soundtrack throbs seductively. Not since Fernando Mireille's City of God has a film about poverty and violence been told with such extraordinary panache.
