Slumdog Millionairre- A worthy winner!

I don't think this film needs any introduction, does it?? Since its the biggest winner at the 81st Academy Awards with 8 awards out of 10 nominations.. Usually, watching oscar nominated films makes me feel sleepy since most of them are in the artistic vein and move rather slowly (case in point: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which I fell asleep halfway while watching, enjoyed the original short story more).. HOWEVER:

Its an entirely different story with slumdog millionaire, as it keeps your eyes glued to the screen, wanting to know more... The story starts by asking a question in the 'who wants to be a millionaire' format, "Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 2o million rupees. How did he do it?"
A. He cheated
B. He's lucky
C. He is a genius
D. It is written

It then switches to a scene where a young man is being tortured in prison by two policemen.. (Cos as a lowly 'tea-boy' from the slums, no-one can believe that he had the knowledge needed to answer the questions). You really feel jolted as well when they electrocute him.. Brrr... When he still does not confess to cheating on the 'millionaire' game show, the inspector asks for a break and gives him a chance to tell his story.. The interesting part then begins as Jamal recalls the happenings in his life that helped him to answer each question..

The scenes are all very emotionally charged as they show life in the slums and the hardships that lower-caste Indians face.. One scene that was most memorable for me was where Jamal and Salim (his brother) see their mother killed when Hindu worshipers come to their village hunting for Muslims and killing them, during their escape, they see a little boy dressed as the god Rama, who incidentally has blue skin.. This is the explanation to how he answered the question "In depictions of God Rama, he is famously holding what is his right hand?" as it evoked memories of the day his mother died.. and the whole movies goes on in this vein..

In another scene, he knows the answer to a question about the author of a famous Indian poem as those who sang the poem well, were blinded by a gang/ syndicate that took in street children to work for them as beggars who felt that blind singing children could help them to earn more.. We learn more and more about Jamal's life through his explanations as to how he knew the answers to the questions asked on the show..

The movie shows aspects of India that one would not normally be able to see, and there are actually many scenes that are shocking and tug at your heartstrings.. The leads also contributed a lot to keep the movie going especially the child actors (who are really from India's slums, if you haven't already known by now..) but for me, Freida Pinto's performance has been overrated since she didn't really appear in many scenes, but she's really pretty, what to do...

Nearing the end of the movie, we find out the real reason why Jamal wanted to be on the show, the good news is he won the both game and his sweetheart, but somebody else died in a bathtub full of cash for that to happen.. Go watch it for yourself to know more since it really is a must watch movie in my opinion.. I really feel that this movie was a very worthy winner, in fact I'm surprised that Dev Patel (Jamal) was not nominated for best actor as he has these amazing eyes that are full of expression.. It was exciting, emotional, colourful and interesting all at the same time..

Only complaint I have is that they never explain how come two boys from the slums can end up being able to speak perfect, grammatically correct English without having any formal education, hahahha... but i ask too much!

From now on, i'm going to do my reviews properly, so:

Title: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)-Based on the novel by Vikas Swarup
Genre: mix of drama, suspense, comedy, etc etc
Director: Danny Boyle
Main cast: Dev Patel (Jamal Malik), Freida Pinto (Latika), Madhur Mittal (Salim Malik), Ayush Mahesh Khedekar (young Jamal), Rubina Ali (young Latika), Azharuddin Ismail (young Salim), Anil Kapoor (Host), Irrfan Khan (police inspector)
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars!
More info: Wikipedia

And lets end with a very uplifting part that helps you forget most of the sadness and emotions that stem up while watching the movie.. When the end credits start appearing, members of the cast are seen dancing, Bollywood style to the Oscar winning song Jai Ho by A.R Rahman, which is quite catchy by the way, and makes you feel like learning Bollywood dance (its the latest craze in US now!) :)