Slumdog Millionaire... One in a Million (2008)

My movie plans for the day got shifted around a bit today. One of the movies I had been thinking of watching was Requiem for a Dream. I've had many recommendations naming that one in particular. I turned it on, and very quickly realized... I've seen this movie before!

I had to find another film, so I put in the multi award-winning Slumdog Millionaire. I wish I could see the reactions of people realizing I haven't seen this! There will probably be SPOILERS ahead! There was a lot of talk about this movie after it won nearly every Oscar it was nominated for including Best Director and Best Movie and a slew of others. For some reason, I just never had the itch to see it. Today I thought "what the heck". I'm not going to fool around here, I really liked this movie, but the question is, how much? Hit the jump for the answer!


Can I just start by saying how much I liked the music in this movie? Not so much the songs, but the score! So many times I caught myself tapping my foot to the awesome music pulsing throughout the movie. The songs were alright. After this movie because so popular the songs were everywhere so at this point I'm just sick of hearing a few of them, especially the song while the kids are on the train. Hate that song! The rest were fine, but I really liked the score, no doubt!

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of my system, how about some story for those few who also haven't seen it. I guess you'd also have to live in complete isolation if you still don't know the story, even without seeing it. Again, I warn that I'll probably be spoiling some things in the rest of the article. You've been warned!

Anyways, Dev Patal plays Jamal, a young man who grew up on the streets and in the slums with only his older brother Salim. The movie opens with him being questioned and tortured to find out how he knows the answers to the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" questions. He proceeds to tell the detective the story of his life. It is THIS story that is the true story of the film; how did he get here to this point in his life. We learn of his childhood, of his teen years, what he and his brother went through, and about the love of his life, Latika.

The beautiful Latika is played by Freida Pinto

What I loved the most about the story was not how he knew all the questions to the game show. My favorite part was the love story that starts between young Jamal and Latika as children and lasts through all their hardships all the way to the present. The struggles Jamal goes through just to keep finding her and losing her again and again are heart wrenching. It finally all comes together in a predictable, but still great ending that put a great big smile on my face.

I thought the acting was decent. It sometimes fluctuated from really good, to just ok. I probably had the most problems with the oldest version of Salim, but I'm not sure if that's just because I also didn't like him. Dev Patel seemed to fluctuate some as well. In the scenes in the police station he was great, but in some of his other emotional scenes I wasn't fully buying it. Freida Pinto who plays Latika was great. Strangely, some of the strongest most believable acting came from the youngest child actors, but I probably cared the least for the teenage versions of Jamal, Salim, and Latika. They were sorta just forgettable. It's weird when you have 3 actors for each of the main characters, I kept running into a bit of a disconnect whenever it would change the actors. It took some time to get used to the new faces. Overall it was positive though.

A detective questions Jamal after he's suspected of cheating

I'm glad I finally got to see this movie, and now I finally understand why it won all those awards. I really did like it even though there was some slight disconnect as I mentioned when the actors switched out for the older versions, but really that only happens twice so it's not that bad. I really liked the story and a majority of the characters, and again the score was really great. I definitely recommend anyone to see this, it's far more interesting and engaging that I ever thought it would be. Don't miss this one!