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Cinema Special: English | | Review of Slumdog Millionaire | |
| I am really disappointed that such crap of a movie is getting so much of attention !
Posted by: Mr. see nu At: 16, Feb 2009 8:33:25 AM IST
Read the review of this movie at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slumdog_Millionaire
Here is the copy:
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British drama film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Simon Beaufoy. It is based on the novel Q and A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Loveleen Tandan, who began as the film's casting director, was later appointed by Boyle as the co-director.[1]
Set and filmed in India, Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who appears on a game show and exceeds people's expectations, arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials.
After screenings at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire had a limited North American release on 12 November 2008 to critical acclaim and awards success. It will be released in India on 23 January 2009.[2]
Slumdog Millionaire won five of the six awards it was nominated for at the Critics Choice Awards, and all four nominations awarded at the Golden Globes including best director, picture, screenplay and score.
Plot
Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a former street child from Mumbai (Bombay), is being interrogated by the police. He is a contestant on Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, hosted by Prem Kumar (noted Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor). Jamal has made it to the final question, but has been accused of cheating.
The explanation of how he knew the answers leads us through the history of his short, hectic, but full life, including scenes of obtaining the autograph of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan; the death of his mother during Hindu-Muslim riots in the slums; and how he and his brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) befriended an orphaned girl, Latika (Freida Pinto). Jamal refers to Salim and himself as Athos and Porthos, and Latika as the third Musketeer, whose name they do not know, not having read far enough in the book.
Living on the trash heaps, they are discovered by Maman (Ankur Vikal), a gangster who runs an orphanage and then uses the children to beg and bring in money. Salim is groomed to become a part of Maman’s operation, and is tasked to bring Jamal so he can be blinded to improve his income potential as a blind singer. Salim rebels against Maman to protect his brother, and the three children try to escape, but only Salim and Jamal are successful. Latika is re-captured by Maman's organization and raised as a culturally talented prostitute whose virginity will fetch a high price.
The brothers eke out a living, traveling on top of trains, selling goods, pretending to be tour guides at the Taj Mahal, and pickpocketing. Jamal eventually insists that they return to Mumbai since he wishes to locate Latika. When he finds her working as a dancer in a brothel, the brothers attempt to rescue her, but Maman intrudes, and in the resulting conflict Salim draws a gun and kills Maman. Salim then uses the fact that he killed Maman to obtain a job with Javed (Mahesh Manjrekar), a rival crime lord. Salim claims Latika as his own, and when Jamal protests, Salim threatens to kill him and Latika intervenes, accepting her fate with Salim.
Years later, Jamal has a position as a "chai-wallah," (a boy or young man who serves tea) at a call centre. When he is asked to cover for a co-worker for a couple of minutes, he searches the database for Salim and Latika. He gets in touch with Salim, who has become a high-ranking lieutenant in Javed’s organization. Salim invites Jamal to live with him and, after following Salim to Javed's house, he sees Latika living there. He talks his way in as the new dishwasher and tries to convince Latika to leave. She rebuffs his advances, but he promises to be at the train station every day at 5 p.m. One day Latika attempts to rendezvous with him, but is recaptured by Javed's men and Salim. One slashes her cheek with a knife, scarring her.
Jamal again loses contact with Latika when Javed moves to another home. In another attempt to find Latika, Jamal tries out for the game show because he knows that she will be watching. He makes it to the final question, despite the hostile attitude of the host who feeds Jamal an incorrect answer during a break. At the end of the episode's taping, Jamal has one question left to win 20 million rupees and is taken into police custody, where he is tortured as the police attempt to learn how Jamal, a simple slumdog, could know the answers to so many questions. After Jamal tells his whole story, explaining how his life experiences coincidentally enabled him to know the answer to each question, the police inspector calls his explanation "bizarrely plausible" and allows Jamal to return to the show for the final question. At Javed's safehouse, Latika watches the news coverage of Jamal's miraculous run on the show. Salim gives Latika the keys to his car and his phone and urges her to run away. When Jamal uses his Phone-A-Friend lifeline to call Salim, Latika answers his phone and they reconnect. She does not know the answer to the final question either, but believing that "it is written", Jamal guesses the correct answer (Aramis) to the question of the one Musketeer whose name they never learned, and wins the grand prize. Simultaneously, Salim is discovered to have helped Latika escape and allows himself to be killed in a bathtub full of money after shooting and killing Javed. Salim's last words are the words "God is great", which is a Muslim prayer. Later that night, Jamal and Latika meet at the train station, and finally share a kiss. The closing credits then imitate a Bollywood- style musical number.
Production
Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy wrote Slumdog Millionaire based on the novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup. To hone the script, Beaufoy made three research trips to India and interviewed street children, finding himself impressed with their attitudes. Swarup used many ideas from student director Asim Bhatti while working on the script. The screenwriter said of his goal for the script: "I wanted to get (across) the sense of this huge amount of fun, laughter, chat, and sense of community that is in these slums. What you pick up on is this mass of energy." By the summer of 2006, British production companies Celador Films and Film4 invited director Danny Boyle to read the script Slumdog Millionaire. Boyle initially hesitated since he was not interested in making a film about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?[3] Boyle soon found out that the screenwriter was Beaufoy, who had written The Full Monty (1997), one of the director's favorite British films, and decided to revisit the script.[4] Boyle was impressed by how Beaufoy wove the multiple storylines from Swarup's book into one narrative, and the director decided to commit to the project. The film was projected to cost US$15 million, so Celador sought a distributor to share costs. Fox Searchlight Pictures made an initial offer that was reportedly in the $2 million range, and Warner Independent Pictures made a $5 million offer that Fox Searchlight could not top.[3]
Filmmakers travelled to Mumbai in September 2007 with a partial crew, and they began hiring local cast and crew for production in Karjat. Originally beginning as the casting director, Loveleen Tandan, has stated that she "suggested to Danny and Simon Beaufoy, the writer of Slumdog, that it was important to do some of it in Hindi to bring the film alive [...] They asked me to pen the Hindi dialogues which I, of course, instantly agreed to do. And as we drew closer to the shoot date, Danny asked me to step in as the co-director." [5] Boyle then decided to translate nearly a third of the film's English dialogue into Hindi. The director fibbed to Warner Independent's president that he wanted 10% of the dialogue in Hindi, and she approved of the change. Filming locations included shooting in Mumbai's megaslum and in shantytown parts of Juhu, so filmmakers controlled the crowds by befriending onlookers.[3] Filming began on 5 November 2007.[6] After the nominations for the Golden Globes were announced, a Chicago film critic launched an on-line campaign to demand that Tandan receive recognition as co-director. Tandan ended the campaign stating, "I can't tell you how embarrassed I am by this [...] The suggestion is highly inappropriate, and I am writing to you to stress that I would not wish it to be considered."[7]
In addition to Swarup's original novel Q and A, Boyle has stated that the film was also directly inspired by three Bollywood films set in Mumbai: Ram Gopal Verma's Satya (1998) and Company (2002), and Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday (2004). Satya and Company, based on the D-Company, both gave "slick, often mesmerizing portrayals of the Mumbai underworld", while the screenplay for Satya was also co-written by Saurabh Shukla, who plays the role of Constable Srinivas in Slumdog Millionaire. Black Friday, based on the 1993 Bombay bombings, featured a "12-minute police chase through the crowded Dharavi slum" that was mimicked in the opening scene of Slumdog Millionaire. Another influence cited by Boyle is Deewaar (1975), which he described as being “absolutely key to Indian cinema.” The film was based on the Bombay gangster Haji Mastan, portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan, the Bollywood movie star whose autograph Jamal wanted and the original presenter for Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?[8]
Cast
Dev Patel as Jamal Malik, the protagonist, a Muslim boy born and raised in the poverty of Mumbai.[9] Boyle considered hundreds of young male actors, although he found that Bollywood leads were generally "strong, handsome hero-types", not the personality he was looking for. Boyle's 17-year-old daughter pointed him to the British television ensemble drama Skins, of which Patel was a cast member.[3] The actor was cast in August 2007.[6]
Freida Pinto as Latika, the girl with whom Jamal is in love. Pinto was an Indian model who had not starred in a feature film before.[3] Regarding the "one of a kind" scarf she wears, "designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb" says, "I wanted to bookend the journey--to tie her childhood yellow dress to her final look."[10]
Anil Kapoor as Prem Kumar, the game show host.[11]
Irrfan Khan as The Police Inspector
Saurabh Shukla as Constable Srinivas
Mahesh Manjrekar as Javed / Raja
Ankur Vikal as Maman
Madhur Mittal as Salim, Jamal's brother.
Ayush Mahesh Khedekar as Youngest Jamal
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail as Youngest Salim
Rubiana Ali as Youngest Latika
Tanay Chheda as Middle Jamal
Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala as Middle Salim
Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar as Middle Latika
Release
In August 2007 Warner Independent Pictures acquired the American and Pathé the international rights to distribute Slumdog Millionaire theatrically.[6] Though Warner Independent Pictures paid $5 million to acquire rights to the film, the studio was hesitant about its commercial prospects. In August 2008, the studio began searching for a buyer to relieve its overload of films at the time.[12] Halfway through the month, Warner Independent Pictures and Fox Searchlight Pictures entered a pact to share distribution of the film with Fox Searchlight buying in a 50% stake.[13] Slumdog Millionaire was first shown at the Telluride Film Festival on 30 August 2008, where it was positively received by audiences, generating "strong buzz".[14] The film also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2008, where it was "the first widely acknowledged popular success" of the festival,[15] winning the People's Choice Award.[16]
Slumdog Millionaire debuted with an "impressive" limited North American release on 12 November 2008, grossing $350,434 in 10 theatres, a "strong" average of $35,043 per theatre.[17] In its second weekend, it expanded to 32 theatres and made $947,795, or an average of $29,619 per theatre, representing a drop of only 16%.[18] In the 10 original theatres that it was released in, viewership went up 16%, and this is attributed to strong word-of-mouth.[19]
It will release in India on 23 January 2009.[20]
Critical reception
Slumdog Millionaire has been critically acclaimed. As of 13 January 2009, Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 94% with a 169 fresh and ten rotten reviews. The average score is 8.2/10.[21] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 86, based on 36 reviews.[22]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film four stars, stating that it is, "a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating."[23] Todd McCarthy of Variety, praises the script as "intricate and cleverly structured", the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle's, and Chris Dickens' editing as "breathless" He concludes that, "as drama and as a look at a country increasingly entering the world spotlight, Slumdog Millionaire is a vital piece of work by an outsider who’s clearly connected with the place."[24] In addition, Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times describes the film as "a Hollywood-style romantic melodrama that delivers major studio satisfactions in an ultra-modern way", and the "hard-to-resist 'Slumdog Millionaire,' with director Danny Boyle adding independent film touches to a story of star-crossed romance that the original Warner brothers would have embraced, shamelessly pulling out stops that you wouldn't think anyone would have the nerve to attempt anymore."[25] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, calls the film "a modern fairy tale," a "sensory blowout," and "one of the most upbeat stories about living in hell imaginable." She concludes that "In the end, what gives me reluctant pause about this bright, cheery, hard-to-resist movie is that its joyfulness feels more like a filmmaker’s calculation than an honest cry from the heart about the human spirit." [26] Finally, Peter Brunette of the Hollywood Reporter, while giving it a positive review, states the film is "a high-octane hybrid of Danny Boyle's patented cinematic overkill and Bollywood's ultra-energetic genre conventions that is a little less good than the hype would have it."[27]
Other critics offered mixed reviews. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film three out of five stars, stating that "despite the extravagant drama and some demonstrations of the savagery meted out to India's street children, this is a cheerfully undemanding and unreflective film with a vision of India that, if not touristy exactly, is certainly an outsider's view; it depends for its full enjoyment on not being taken too seriously." [28]Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle states that, "Slumdog Millionaire has a problem in its storytelling. The movie unfolds in a start-and-stop way that kills suspense, leans heavily on flashbacks and robs the movie of most of its velocity. The filmmakers' motives are sincere. The story is interesting enough. Yet the whole construction is tied to a gimmicky narrative strategy that keeps "Slumdog Millionaire" from really hitting its stride until the last 30 minutes. By then, it's just a little too late." [29] Anthony Lane of the New Yorker suggests that the film is predictable with a "mismatch" between the gritty reality which the film attempts to portray and the result which is "sheer fantasy, not in its glancing details but in its emotional momentum." [30] Eric Hynes of IndieWIRE panned the film and wrote it is "bombastic", "a noisy, sub-Dickens update on the romantic tramp's tale" and faulted the film's glossy and sentimental portrayal of societal poverty, and described it as "a goofy picaresque to rival Forrest Gump" in its morality and romanticism.[31] Josh Tyler of Cinema Blend gave the film a negative review, criticizing the film as exploitative and racist, as well as a stereotypical portrayal of Indian culture as "a cynical collection of third-world clichés sold with pretty colors and an uplifting soundtrack". He also writes that most Indians would take issue with the distinct demonization of Indian society as "bankrupt and evil", and a "civilization of murderers and hatemongers" in this film.[32]
Reaction from South Asian critics
Amitabh BachchanBollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan (whom young Jamal eagerly seeks an autograph from in the beginning of the film) strongly criticizes Slumdog Millionaire in his official blog. Bachchan states, "conditions the world over are so similar. Perceptions differ, but the reality of life and existence, unchanged. On blog, comments for the film SlumDog Millionaire and the anger by some on its contents, prompt me to say the above. If SM projects India as Third World dirty under belly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky under belly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations. It's just that the SM idea authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a Westerner, gets creative Globe recognition. The other would perhaps not. The commercial escapist world of Indian Cinema had vociferously battled for years, on the attention paid and the adulation given to the legendary Satyajit Ray at all the prestigious Film Festivals of the West, and not a word of appreciation for the entertaining mass oriented box office block busters that were being churned out from Mumbai."[33][34][35] Author and critic Salman Rushdie stated in an interview with the New York Times that he is "not a very big fan" of Slumdog Millionaire. He further commented: "I think it’s visually brilliant. But I have problems with the story line. I find the storyline unconvincing. It just couldn’t happen. I’m not adverse to magic realism but there has to be a level of plausibility, and I felt there were three or four moments in the film where the storyline breached that rule."[36] Smitha Radhakrishnan of UCLA's Asia Institute gave the film a mixed review stating that it offers "an action-packed, devastating, intriguing, and oddly beautiful world." Radhakrishnan also argues that while its "outsider's" view offers an "unexpected advantage," there were notable "slip-ups" of which the "most glaring was the language. Despite the plausible explanation that Jamal and Salim picked up English, posing as tour guides at the Taj Mahal, it is highly implausible that they would come out of that experience speaking perfect British English, as Dev Patel does in portraying the grown-up Jamal. It's highly implausible that he would speak to Latika and Salim in English as an adult too, but somehow, in the context of the movie, we buy it. Thing is that if he really was as smart and articulate as Jamal was in the film, he definitely would have been making calls at the call center, not just serving chai. The grown-up Jamal was altogether too polished, too beautiful, too clean, and too earnest to have lived the life he did."[37]
Awards and honors
Main article: List of Slumdog Millionaire awards and honors
Slumdog Millionaire has won a number of awards, including four Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Director - Motion Picture (Danny Boyle), Best Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy) and Best Original Score (A. R. Rahman).
Soundtrack
Slumdog Millionaire
Film score by A. R. Rahman
Released 25 November 2008
Recorded Panchathan Record Inn and AM Studios
Genre Soundtracks
Film scores
Label N.E.E.T.
Professional reviews
CHARTattack link
Bollywood Hungama link
Rediff.com link
A. R. Rahman chronology
Ghajini
(2008) Slumdog Millionaire
(2009) Delhi-6
(2009)
Composer A. R. Rahman planned the score over two months and completed it in two weeks.[38] He has stated he was aiming for "mixing modern India and the old India" with the music, but that the film and soundtrack "isn’t about India or Indian culture. The story could happen anywhere." Boyle, who "hated sentiment" and told Rahman "Never put a cello in my film", wanted a "pulsey" score. Rahman appreciated that Boyle liked how Indian films mix music, saying the director wanted "edgy, upfront" music that did not sound suppressed. Composing pieces to fit the images, he noted: "There’s not many cues in the film. Usually a big film has 130 cues. This had just seventeen or eighteen: the end credits, beginning credits."[38] Describing the music as one of the parts he liked most in the film,[39] Boyle wanted to include M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" from early on in production on the score, which appears along with an original track Rahman composed, "O...Saya," featuring the artist.[40] M.I.A., who Rahman described as a "powerhouse" gave brief film notes on some scenes to Boyle upon request during editing.[41][38][42] The soundtrack for the film was released on M.I.A.'s N.E.E.T. label.[43] Rahman's score won a 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.The Soundtrack Reached the No.1 Spot on the U.S. Itunes Store.
For more details, visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slumdog_Millionaire
Posted by: Mr. Rajesh K At: 15, Jan 2009 11:06:49 AM IST
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