Rating: TopnotchViewed: Feb. 4, 2009 at El Con with Laraine
Rotten Tomato: 94% Mine: Same
EW: B cag: A
Genre: Drama (and Romance)
Released 11/12/08
R (2 hr 0 min)
Directed by Danny Boyle (Brit.)
British film
Mombai (Bombay) slums
2008 Academy Award Winner - BEST MOVIE (2/22/09)
Incredible storytelling, superb casting, and a surreal setting work together to make one of the best movies I've seen in a long, long time. No matter how much you hear about the poverty, the huge population, or the multitude of parentless, homeless children in India, watching this movie makes it real. Sometimes, too real.
18-year-old Jamal Malik is competing in India's 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire," and is about to win 20 million ruppees. But because the show's producer does not believe a street urchin could possibly correctly answer all the questions that Jamal did, he is taken into custody and interrogated to see how he cheated. Throughout this interragation his story is told, which shows how he knew the answers that were asked, and bring him through the years to the time and place that he currently resides. It goes back to when he was a young boy and orphaned, with his brother, Saleem, in Bombay. They are joined by Latika, a young girl in the same situation, and the relationship between Latika and Jamal is the thread that holds this story together. The three sets of actors that play the three protagonists are superb, really excellent. It's a mesmerizing film. And although I would have never believed it from watching the opening scenes, I walked out of the theater happy - and quite satisfied.
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