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Title: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Dev Patel | ... | Older Jamal | |
| Saurabh Shukla | ... | Sergeant Srinivas | |
| Anil Kapoor | ... | Prem | |
| Raj Zutshi | ... | Director | |
 |
Jeneva Talwar | ... | Vision Mixer |
| Freida Pinto | ... | Older Latika | |
| Irrfan Khan | ... | Police Inspector | |
| Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail | ... | Youngest Salim | |
| Ayush Mahesh Khedekar | ... | Youngest Jamal | |
|
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Jira Banjara | ... | Airport Security Guard (as Hira Banjara) |
|
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Sheikh Wali | ... | Airport Security Guard |
| Mahesh Manjrekar | ... | Javed | |
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Sanchita Choudhary | ... | Jamal's Mother |
|
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Himanshu Tyagi | ... | Mr Nanda |
| Sharib Hashmi | ... | Prakash | |
The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's Kaun Banega Crorepati? (2000) (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Each chapter of Jamal's increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show's seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really ... Written by Fox Searchlight Pictures
Bless us all, Danny Boyle is in his prime. His "Sunshine" was lifeatleringly effective for me. He does things with a camera that are new, effective. He does better than others in providing a story foundation that fits the cinematic effects. He's visually clever. Its all more than enough for me.
Here, he appeases audiences too much for my taste in building a happy ending that has you walking out actually believing that you have seen a happy romance, worthy of Bollywood dance fantasy. This, I suppose is his answer to those who were confused by "Sunshine"s failure to support a common genre. Alas, a shame.
But the cinematic bits are more than enough.
Quite apart from the romance, what we have here is a (unique I think) synthesis of the film (here a TeeVee show) within that affects the film without plus a similar device of memory within. Here it is both a recall and a storytelling. The earlier in life we go, the more hectic and jagged the visions. It starts with one of the three "City of God" types of choppy editing and slowly bleeds into a normally paced picture. But that "City of God" stuff was mostly just in camera motion, and intended to contrast with the other two "personalities."
Here it is in the camera, in the movement of the actors and deeply in the editing. Its integrated and cinematic. Its brilliant. I think that is because of the way Boyle has digested the results of Dogma 95. There was a lot of pretentious stuff in that manifesto, but its core and ultimately its effect has been the opposite of the intended. The capture of the natural to be true has to involve intrusive craft, not lack of craft. Boyle, without notice has picked up Dogma graduates for his crew, more this time than usual.
The beginning of this film is true, powerful, full of life, energy. It is real. As it progresses and our hero enters and is accepted into TeeVee land it becomes more romantic and unreal, more like a Bollywood romance. It is more powerful than any from Bollywood because we assume it to be real from the beginning. Clever.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.