Caffeinated Clint
By Gavin Britton
If you wanted to hook up with your long lost love would you: a) give her a call, b) give her a poke on FaceBook, c) go on ‘Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?’, or d) give up and go back to the sad, lonely, and familiar comfort of one’s hand? In an attempt to find his childhood love Latika, who is a big fan of the popular game show, 18-year-old orphan Jamal Malik locked in c).
Set in Mumbai, India, and based on the novel ‘Q & A’ by Vikas Swarup, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ starts with Jamal being inhumanely interrogated by police after making it all the way to the final question. Everyone assumes this uneducated call centre ‘tea boy’ has cheated, but Jamal sets the record straight by explaining how several heartbreaking, life-affirming events led to him knowing the answers. A premise as good as this, handled by director Danny Boyle (‘Trainspotting’, ’28 Days Later’) and writer Simon Beaufoy (‘The Full Monty’), sounds like a recipe for a classic, right? Well, you’d think so, but much like ‘The Kite Runner’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ turns out to be merely good, instead of great.
While Boyle’s quiz scenes are genuinely tense and his flashy style is perfectly suited to Mumbai’s chaotic city life, he lacks the warm touch needed to fully tug at your heartstrings during what should be extremely touching moments – and what’s with the weird Bollywood-style ending? Anil Kapoor shines as the smarmy game show host and Indian model-turned-actress Freida Pinto is beautiful as Latika. Unfortunately, Dev Patel’s overall look and passive portrayal of Jamal doesn’t entirely convince you he’d have the charisma to win over a girl of Latika’s standard, and what should have been a ‘Notebook’ moment at the film’s conclusion turns out to be a rather corny and lacklustre affair. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ works as a feel good, root-for-the-underdog, love story, but it could have been so much more.
