Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is the talk of the tinsel town during the 2009 Golden Globe Awards. Even the co-director of the movie Loveleen Tandon has already been in several well known projects like Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake, Vanity Fair etc.

The best motion picture in the drama category went to Slumdog Millionaire and Boyle won the Best Director award for it. It has also won in two other categories; Best Screenplay and Best Original Score.

The story of Slumdog Millionaire is quite simple. Jamal, a young boy from the slums of Mumbai wins 20 million Rupees on the TV show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? or you can say in the Indian version “Kaun Benega Crorepati?” But he is soon arrested on suspicion of cheating on the show to win such a huge amount. Jamal tells the inspector how he was able to answer all the questions. Finally the inspector is convinced.

There is nothing much in the story. This over hyped movie is full of errors. A poor young boy living in the slum of Bombay suddenly turns into an error-free English speaking teenager. Jamal and his brother master the art of spoken English without taking admission in any language improvement courses. So is the case with Latika. As the story of this movie is based in Mumbai, the entire film shows Bombay in the background; and then why the hell everyone is speaking in English, even the Inspector and his constables. The only Hindi words they seem to know are motherchod and chuth. I know that this movie is made by an English speaking gentleman targeting the English speaking audiences still there is something called subtitles.

Jamal is shown working in a call centre serving tea. He is the “chai-boy” and the way he speaks English, it seems that he is good enough to be promoted from a chai-boy to a call centre agent. In fact, he takes couple of calls during the later part of the movie at the call centre.

And also Jamal knows whose picture is printed on a $100 bill but he fails to say whose picture can be found on an Indian Rs.100 note. May be he had never seen a thousand rupees note in his entire life. God knows what!
Even the Police Inspector and the constable had quite a decent amount of fluency in English while speaking. Though they were conversing in English, however, their corrupted and arrogant attitudes towards young Jamal were purely desi.

Latika had nothing much to do in the movie, may be due to the bindings in the script. Rising from the filthiest slums of Bombay, she ended up making sandwiches inside a modular kitchen.

The background score is noteworthy, but definitely not the best work by A.R.Rehman. The starting of the movie where the cops chase away those young kids who are playing cricket on the runway to the water supply pipelines, reminds me of scenes from Black Friday. Unfortunately Slumdog Millionaire has bypassed the reality by thousand miles. However, if you have liked this movie, then try watching Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay for the real taste of street children of Bombay.

Watch the trailer of Slumdog Millionaire

My Rating - 5/10

Learn more about the movie on IMDB

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