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Money seems to be emerging as a major protagonist in
movies these days, what with the current financial crisis.
And while Zack and Miri struggled to make ends meet at the
plexes by making a porno, the Brits have weighed in with
the Indian megabucks quiz show fantasy, Slumdog Millionaire.
Though here the challenge is less about money shots than
the filmmakers conceiving of a highly unlikely high IQ hero
who has to be a whole lot smarter than they are.***
Directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later),
and with a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty)
adapted from the novel 'Q & A' by Indian writer Vikas Swarup,
Slumdog Millionaire is a hyperactive rags to riches yarn
playing out on the mean streets of Mumbai. A brutal tale
of child exploitation and abuse that would have made Charles
Dickens keel over, Slumdog Millionaire keeps tabs on the
dismal existence of Jamal (Dev Patel), a Muslim street urchin
left homeless with throngs of kids orphaned following the
mass carnage of religious civil war.***
Driven by a fierce will to survive, though not without
the peculiar intermittent intervention of a series of bizarre
lucky coincidences, Jamal narrowly eludes being blinded
by a con man cultivating a gang of sightless kid street
beggars. And he even manages to have no problem clearing
an entire street to push through the crowd and obtain an
autograph from his favorite movie star, after escaping covered
in excrement from the bottom of a locked outhouse.***
But fate temporarily takes a less fortunate turn when
Jamal - now an enterprising teen toiling at odd jobs following
a stint conning foreigners as a fake tour guide at the Taj
Mahal - by chance lands on a 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'
style game show. With a seemingly superhuman ability to
answer every question correctly despite his lower caste
roots and lack of formal education, Jamal raises the suspicions
of the irritated host (Anil Kapoor) and is sent off to jail.***
Though tortured in order to force a confession that
he's cheating his way through the quiz show, Jamal, who
has been through far worse in his young life, resists. His
explanations for being so brainy eventually satisfy his
captors, though the fanciful details will likely be a lot
less convincing for even the most gullible movie audiences.***
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