Slumdog Millionaire: Review

Well, I finally got around to watching it, the second 2008 Best Picture nominee I’ve seen so far (the first being Benjamin Button), and, admittedly, perhaps my standards were just a tad too high.  I guess that, since this movie WON and all, everyone ranting and raving about how great it was, it’d be, at the very least, a few notches above a story about an old guy turning into a baby.  I suppose I was expecting, say, Schindler’s List and, instead, I got something I’d more readily compare to a “Bring It On” spin-off (perhaps more because of the credits than anything else).

My problem is, very probably, the fact that I think masterpieces aren’t supposed to make you happy, an opinion birthed not from my utter hatred for the particular emotion but rather because I believe art should make you think and, unfortunately, thinking tends to make me, and possibly others, very gloomy because only then do I realize how bloody useless anything I do is.  But let’s talk about the film.

The plot is revealed largely in flashbacks, a device which does have a nasty tendency to eliminate any and all suspense, but it’s interesting enough to see how the quiz seems to have been created with the chronology of the main character’s life in mind.  How this works is beyond me.  Perhaps God is real and has a strange obsession with little Indian boys winning lots of money in quiz shows.  It’s no spoiler to reveal that, yes, Jamal wins the frigging money.  For the one of you out there cussing at your computer right now, fuddle duddle.  It’s in the bloody title.  Go be thick somewhere else.  This blog is only for hollow people.

In the film’s defense, I probably would’ve enjoyed it more had people not let it win an Oscar.  It’s the kind of movie I might sit down and watch with friends at a party while we’re all talking about something else, like me for instance, and might occasionally watch.  This movie is, quite frankly, not art, it’s a popcorn movie.  The thing is, we’ve all seen it before, probably on Disney Channel only, instead of Indian kids, we get Zac Efron singing about “What Time It Is.”

3 stars out of 4

Tags: 2008, benjamin, button, millionaire, movies, oscars, review, slumdog