Slumdog Millionaire
Since everyone I knew (and did not know) was insistent that the movie is the best cat's pajamas out there, I started to watch the movie with great interest was impressed with the way the movie started. I must note that the child actors were specially good and very comfortable with their characters.
But there are some things in the movie that make it ... a few inches left of a 21 gun salute.
1 ) The movie never elaborated on how Jamal would know to read and write English. Even if it's narrative device for western audience and in reality it should be Hindi - it won't work. Typing on a computer in Hindi is no easy task - and no call center I can imagine will have signs posted in Hindi.
The fix for this problem is actually rather simple. Jamal works as a chaiwala in the call center and 100s of young boys and girls come to work in these from smaller cities in India and have to go through a sort of a diction course. I understand that several hundreds of people take basic English classes to get into these jobs and Jamal could have chanced upon a similar class.
It's one of those things that I would buy if only they would sell it to me.
2 ) The 100 $ bill - Even if I buy that Jamal knew who was pictured on a 100$ bill, I just don't see him giving it to the blind beggar friend. Firstly - it's a shitload of money for him at that point of his life, secondly he knows that money is going to the guys who run the racket, and in his line of work - where the heck would he get the bill from?
Solution was actually extremely simple and already in the movie. When the American couple give him some sort of a dollar bill (Pardon my memory), it could be for 100$ and they could say, "Here's a Franklin for you"!
3) This is - well, I like movies to have a linkback (I have no idea if that's even a word) and so ... - not that important but the movie is about destiny, and one of the tag lines is "It is Written!" - so for the last question, when Jamal had to take a blind guess, I wish they would cut to the "B" Anil Kapoor had written on the mirror before, and Jamal decided to choose 'B' (And, of course, 'B' should have been the right answer)
Anyhoo. Nice movie and all, but I won't be handing out any awards to it.
1 comments:
oh i love ur last point it would have been so nice to see that happening... but the dollar thing i saw the whole dollar thing as a very american attitude intially, remember the time she says "I will show u real america son" but then someone commented on my blog saying they saw it like this
"I thought that was a very aptly situated tongue-in-cheek satire on Americans’ pseudo sense of generosity and compassion. The scene had me smiling in a very self-humbling manner. As if a 100 dollar bill could solve everything. I really liked that scene!
he same 100 dollar bill is shown later when jamal gives it to arvind ... but arvind rejects it ...
jamal didn't care much for it for he was readily giving it away ... and arvind didn't want it either. so really that 100 dollar bill was worthless to these people whereas the american lady was assuming that she was helping them with her 'american' generosity and was reveling in that.
i thought that was a strong satirical message there. :)"
but overall i agree with u its a great movie but not oscar worthy
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