Cast: Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Frieda Pinto
Director: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan
The movie was nominated for 10 Academy Awards (won 8 Oscars) in 2009 and won a lot of other prizes, but I wasn’t really blown away by the movie. I’m not going to spend too much time on this movie review because its popularity is big and a lot of specific Indian values can be found in this interesting story.
The action takes place in India. Jamal is a young man who came from the slums of Mumbai and got to play thegame, “Who wants to be a millionaire”. A whole nation is amazed about how a humble boy like him, knew the answers to the questions in the show. The police thought he was a cheater so they tryed to persuade him into telling the truth on how he did it. After several hours of humiliation and pain, Jamal starts telling the story of his life and how some of the small events that marked his life gave him the answers of the questions that would take him very far into the game. The story that he tells is amazing and complex. More interesting, is the way he connects the story to the answers. Jamal is really persistent and clever as he manages to get through a hard life, living in the slum with his brother, figuring out how to survive day by day.
There is a romantic part of the movie and that was the detail that made me lose my interest, but probably that is why the film is so apreciated as it mixes different emotions.
The movie has some shocking scenes and it shows the life of the poor in a fast growing country.
Watch Trailer:
Popularity: 42% [?]
Yep! i agree it is a very good movie, but not mind blowing. There are mind blowing moments, when actors and the director are realizing together unique displays of human emotions. But from one end to the other it remains just a very good movie. Now that makes me wonder: if a ” very good movie”, takes so many oscars, then where is this industry really going? this should only happen with real masterpieces. Is this generation lacking creativity?
Well you’re right, however the Oscar is a bit over rated in my opinion and any prize that’s awarded on an yearly basis, sooner or later, becomes overrated. I’m just glad the Olympics are every 4 years…
Anyway, they have to give the Oscar prizes every year so I guess it doesn’t mean that all Oscar movies are equally best, it just means they were the best for that year…it’s all about getting as many people as possible to buy the ticket, the DVD, the poster, the T-shirt and all the other crap they come up with using the movie theme.
Well yeah, nevertheless the symbolics of such a prize (being the most rated prize in the industry) should raise each and every year at least one movie “close to perfection”. I mean if one only takes a look at the $ invested each year, one can see that the only thing really lacking is imagination and creation power. But everything is too much of a biz today and the numbers always need to get out in order.
Anyway enough with the negativity. Like the website said: “life is too short for bad movies”, so let’s focus on the really good ones!