Five stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, profanity, torture and graphic child abuse
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.12.08
Buy DVD: Slumdog Millionaire
• Buy Blu-Ray: Slumdog Millionaire [Blu-ray]
Some filmmakers — precious few — deserve to be cherished for their totality of talent: the degree to which they understand and exploit every aspect of the motion picture medium, from actors and camera angles to music and production design.
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| Jamal (Dev Patel, left) has enough on his plate, while facing progressively harder question as a contestant on India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire; the last thing he needs is the rising hostility from the show's host, Prem (Anil Kapoor), who feels increasingly threatened by the stage presence of this no-account kid from the Mumbai slums. |
Nothing is accidental in the hands of such an artist; everything is planned. Watching the resulting film is less a passive experience and more a celebration.
Director Danny Boyle has given us just such a movie this holiday season, with his dazzling Slumdog Millionaire.
This is a truly original creature: a distinctly different approach by the British Boyle to tell a story set halfway around the world, using a cast of primarily children and young people to tell a tale so audaciously melodramatic — from exhilarating love story to crime drama, travelogue and underdog saga — that we half expect the film to collapse under the weight of its own structure.
But that never happens. Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty
, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
), adapting Vikas Swarup's novel Q&A, trigger every human reaction possible as their film proceeds. Initially, though, you're likely to go pale.
The story begins brutally, as 18-year-old Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is hauled into a police station by an inspector (Irrfan Khan) who wants answers: As we discover via flashbacks, the boy, a contestant on India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, is one question away from winning the top prize.
Clearly, Jamal has been cheating ... because how could an orphan from the slums of Mumbai possibly have known the answers to all those diverse and increasingly obscure questions?
The inspector wants his own answers, and isn't above employing torture to get them. But Jamal cannot grant the inspector's desire, and the attending sergeant — who cranks the car battery to shock the boy into submission — finally voices the unthinkable: What if the kid really knew the answers?
How, scoffs the inspector, could that ever be the case?
Jamal, tossed into a chair, eagerly responds to this question he can handle. But the answer is complicated, and requires him to return to his adolescent days on the streets: a harrowing saga shared with his older brother, Salim.
