I had huge expectations for this movie after reading the reviews and hearing from people, I am disappointed. The movie is in bad taste. They have directed the movie not with the intention of making one, but with the intention of celebrating India’s poverty. Which country in the world is free from this problem and who would want to make fun of it???
The movie begins with the cops torturing a guy, only until you realize that the guy is getting thrashed only for getting all the answers right on a game show. Why on earth would police do that? Then that guy starts narrating how the bad experiences he had in his life helped him to answer those questions. If we go by the director, actually none of his life experiences would give him the right answers. There would have been no takers for this movie -
If the hero could have come up with the answers with the help of good experiences he had in his life (i.e. portraying India s rich culture and showing what the real INDIA is)
Some Indian director had directed this movie.
I am not writing this because this movie has shown some bad things about my country but here are a few glaring loopholes in the movie –
1. Cops grill a guy just because he got all the answers right on some show.
2. Two brothers keep conversing in Hindi and suddenly they have an accent, I agree this is an English movie; then why did they not have it from the start.
3. Small poor blind kid tells who the person is on a $100 bill. How will a beggar know that and that too it being a foreign currency?
4. The host (Anil Kapoor) keeps teasing him as the poor chaiwala every time and the audience joins him, Indians don’t make fun of poverty, maybe the people from west do it.
5. Jamaal knows who invented the revolver just because his brother owns oneJ
6. Jamaal gets to find his brothers number in a call centre that provides service to callers from Europe. I wonder why they would keep a local telephone directory that too with mobile numbers listed in it.
7. Police beat him up black and blue and the very next day he s back on show with not even a single scratch on his body.
I bet, I can add more to that list. I have never seen so many flaws in a single movie till now:-)
I have noticed one thing, winning a booker is very easy nowadays, write some piece of crap on India and show that there is no other country worse than this, you are sure of getting one. May be the director lost his job to some Indian that is why he has come up with this piece of crap. Probably the west is threatened by the brand image India and they want to tarnish our image, may be a part of what he has shown is prevalent in India but we have so many other things to be proud of.
There are a few things which add no sense to the script but still its there in the movie just to depict India as a bad country,
1. Children rob a car, Jamaal says this is the real India and the owner of that car hands him a few dollars and says this is the real America. What the f@#k? We all know what the real America is.
2. The scene which shows how mineral water is packed in India.
Probably the worst ending a movie can have, Latika is watching the show on TV and Jamaal makes a call to his brother expecting that his brother would give him the answer to the last question. Phone rings and after few minutes Latika realizes that the phone is indeed with her in the car and she starts running, covers a lot of distance and to the surprise the phone still keeps ringing and obviously I expected her to give the answer after that slow motion run, she smiles, I still haven’t figured out why and tells that she doesn’t know the answer. She had already seen the question on TV, if she didn’t know the answer, why did she have to take the trouble of running all the way and pick up the call??
And there’s nothing like it’s written in our fate, we have to go and take it if we want. If we sit just like that and say why worry it’s written we will get it, there will not be a bigger fool than us in this world. Indeed a horrible message at the end of a horrible movie.
This movie has nothing in it, a weak plot and to add to that a very poor direction indeed, specially made for the west to feel good and try not to feel threatened by a growing force in the world. If you want to spoil your day then go on, watch this movie:-)
* The title of my blog has got nothing to do with the title of the movie; it’s indeed the name which I have given to the director after watching the movie.
4 comments:
Well, prepare yourself for a long comment :-)
I almost disagree with most of your comments, and here are the reasons:
Two things I would like to make it clear here : The movie is not about a game show. It is about a underdog winning against all odds. And this movie is certainly not 'celebrating' Indian poverty.
My explanation :
You are right, no country is free from poverty. So when every single thing he shows is happening in India even today, why get frustrated over it. I guess it is a sign that we are becoming helpless against the things :(. If this was shot in Mexico or some African country or even in America, I'm sure you would have liked this film better.
I understand that this film is stretching the limits of coincidence to its breaking point. But as I said before, its never about the question and answers. Its the life of a boy. I'll quickly negate some points here. I'm sure I can negate all the points, but you will get the jist :-)
Police torture is much worse for much smaller crimes. An Indian is a co-director of the movie. And some of the slum people shown are from real slums in Mumbai. The accent is done for the sole purpose of it not becoming a foreign language movie. Sad that Indian directors could not come up with such movies :(.
How can you think that when a person shows brutal reality, he is trying to depict India as a bad country. Its like we have a torn piece of shirt, rather than looking to fix it we are trying to hide it. It will never work. Atleast is many people point to the torn part, we will fix it at some time.
And the most disagreeing part is your opinion on fate or destiny. I think you have got the concept of destiny completely mixed up. Destiny is not sitting on ur ass and expecting everything to happen on its own. Its like even if you try, if its not in your destiny things will never happen. I would suggest you to read the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. This might change your perspective. Sorry if i was brutal, but so is the truth shown in Slumdog Millionaire.
I would have really appreciated if the movie was only about the underdog but unfortunately it isn’t. I am upset with the fact that some foreigner has got it completely wrong, may be he should have done his homework properly; I want to make it clear my reaction would have been the same even if it would have been some remote country in Africa. You have not got my point, what I m trying to say is people get recognized globally just by writing and directing some crap on India. I am frustrated only because Indian writers are judged based on what issue or topic they write against India ,which instead should have been by the quality of the work they have written, and I m in no way frustrated because of poverty. Do you think there no other writers apart from Adiga and Arundhati Roy in India capable of winning a booker? People get undue recognition either by writing things that which does not exist in India or in case if it exists, by magnifying it to a huge extent. There are so many good movies, far better than Slumdog made by Indian directors. Why, not even a single movie from India has made it to the Golden Globe? TZP is a classic example about an underdog winning against all odds and I m pretty sure you would agree with me on this, TZP is far better than Slumdog and still sadly it is out of the Oscars. I am not against the movie or people who show poverty in our country but against the unfair treatment given to such people. I hope you got the point now. And I don’t believe in fate or destiny, I can prove it to you that there’s nothing like destiny but let’s leave this discussion about fate because it’s just an opinion we people have got:-)
having seen the heated discussions on this movie in the past few days, some (like me) praising it to great extents and others (like you) who think that it shows India in a bad taste to the world, I have come to understand that this film has evoked 2 types of emotions. Both of us are not alone in our arguments ;-)
ps: lets keep the oscar discussions for another post :-)
I agree with your views Mr.Gaurav, an Indian Movie or Book is not recognised in global scenario, unless there is some India Bashing in it..
I also, agree that these Imperfections do exist in our country... but the act of magnifying "selective reality" is pathetic..
movie on Irregularities in the American Churches is not globally propaganded... where as a movie like "water" is given all recognition to ensure there's a magnification of irregularities in our society.
Its not that, we are biased, its the bias of the west..
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