Who wants to be a Slumdog Millionaire?

Any guesses?
Well, to know the correct answer we need to go through a riot. Yes, a riot of every color and hue , every possible filth and dirt, every sense and sensibility. For, a movie called 'Slumdog Millionaire' is a riot in itself.
How can Jamaal, a boy from the slums of Mumbai, possibly know all the answers of the quiz game show 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire"?
A quiz in itself, the best suitable option is
A. He cheated.
But How?
Thats for the cops to find out . So we have our Inspector Irfan Khan interrogating the 20 year old Jamaal (Dev Patel) in desi style , after sub-inspector Saurabh Shukla has pounded some desi abuses and electrodes to find the truth.
Well, the truth is not so easy as it seems. It actually is a journey , a mindboggling travel back in time encompassing the tale of two brothers living in a slum and how one of them , eventually is on the verge of making history.
The story of Jamaal and Salim , 'slum' brothers who trick everything that comes their way...cops, mobs, theives, conmen, trains, cars, Taj Mahal , foreigners, just about everything but their fate.
Because you cant beat fate actually, can you?


Well, the movie shows all this and more with a zanny style or rather, Danny (Boyle) style. Excellent narrative, superb camera-work, long and short angles, close-ups, colors and a cutting edge screenplay that zips through the sets of KBC to the slums of Dharavi to cell of a police station and leaves you wide-eyed till the end.
Nobody ever dared to go this deep into the life of slum children and into those filthy,dingy, crowded, nauseating narrow bylanes of Dharavi (Asia's largest slum) and nobody filled such dirt into your eye that you almost feel like being punished watching thier shit holes (literally!)
But Danny does. He takes his camera right into the pot hole and comes out unscathed. Telling the world a cruel and poor reality that we hide. The sprawling megapolis , the city of dreams, Mumbai, in a begrime state. A fact nobody could be prode of. But a fact a million slum dwellers thrive on , each day and every day.

Ragpickers, scavangers, gutter-cleaners, blind beggers ...they all are there , making their omnipresence felt and making us laugh at ourselves. Because, instead of seeking your pathos, this movie celebrates their joy.
And then it celebrates more, keeping the dark rhetoric alive and kicking and shows how those two brothers escape anti-muslim riots, loose their mother, befriend an orphaned slum girl (Latika) , get picked up by a begger mafia, run away ,become fraudsters and then return to the city to end up twisting their destinies.
Salim naturally steals the show with his exuberant gangster act , while Latika maintains her silence and Jamaal has his jaws always open in exclaimation mark to the turn of events and for the love of his life...Latika.
And then comes the moment of reckoning, the Kaun Banega Crorepati , the desi version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire game show where you find the dubious Anil Kapoor bewitchingly kicking Jamaal's ass for his extraordinary feat of coming and winning on the show.
How come a simple 'chai-wala' know all the answers?


Yes, how does he...well, logically correct but thats where you find the real power of Cinema...it explains the inexplicable. And in style. and with color... and with song and dance...and with an unparallel intensity ....not to forget the ephemeral yet eternal romance.
The magic behind this form of story-telling is that you keep the viewer engrossed until the penultimate climax. That of course, in some ways, turns out to be predictable yet so dramatic.
The second half of the movie does slackens a bit after the high hullabaloo of slum children. Some of the best moments of the film are in the opening half, with special mention to the Train Sequence where these brothers actually are shown growing up from their childhood to teenage .




Boy, these children deserve an award each and a befitting reward for playing it so loud and clear.
Bravo act!
Kudos to the Director and the co-director, Loveleen Tandon, for picking the finest amongst the ragpickers and bringing out such a rivetting performance from them.
These kids even outshine Dev Patel and Frida Pinto when it comes to some great acting. Dev looks almost unconvincing as the 'chai-wala' at a call center, he appears more like an NRI Gujju with a tea-tray in hand. But towards the end, he manages to pull up a commendable act.
As for Frida, she just manages to dazzle with her magnetic eyes...doesnot has much to act.


Irfan Khan is wasted as the Inspector but by now he has become our favourite mascot for Hollywood filmmakers that they would cast him in any nondescript role. Mahesh Manjrekar as 'Javed' the don also fails to impress.
But yes, Anil Kapoor does spell his witchy magnestism on the sets creating a larger than life persona required for such an act.

However, as we promote India Inc shining , this movie would make the world to see a more darker and dirtier image that we so menancingly covered up. We aren't beggers, are we?
Well, as an Indian, it is pride enough to sell anything 'Made in India' but as a Westerner, this movie would reaffirm the adage that India is poor. But rising.
Thanks to A R Rehman's music, it is the soul again, stirring up a perfect rhapsody of hip-hop, indian classical, western and Bollywood jamboree. It just stands apart and deserves the accolades.

And as for the story of a slumdog millionaire, there could not have been a more exciting climax. It is actually the best moment of the story as he answers the last question using his last lifeline.
And as he answers, we get our answer too :
A.He did not cheat. B. He is not lucky and C. He is not a genius. The correct answer is :

JAI HO !