Slumdog Millionaire Review

I read somewhere that some Mumbai-based movie critics are saying Danny Boyle has shown Mumbai as a gutter. I don’t know what those guys mean. If the shoot has taken place in Dharavi, how will it look clean? It’s not supposed to. My advice to the critics is to CLEAN IT if you can.

 

Let’s get to the movie now. I am going to review it as an Indian — foreigners seem awestruck by a few things that we see everyday and pass off as normal. Slumdog Millionaire is a story exactly as the title suggests – the tale of a slum dog who becomes a millionaire. The journey is what makes you believe in this piece of celluloid.

 

The movie is based on the novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup, directed by Danny Boyle and co-directed by the lesser-known Lovleen Tandon. Simon Beaufoy, the screen writer has woven the book nicely into an inspirational screenplay.

 

It all starts off with the protoagonist, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), being interrogated by a cop (Irfan Khan). Jamal has been brought in for interrogation because the cops suspect him of cheating in a game show. Poverty being his major enemy and honesty his strength, Jamal manages to convince the cops that he is innocent and goes on to complete the show as a roll-over contestant.

 

The story is Jamal’s life’s journey, depicting his life in a slum, the death of his mother in Hindu-Muslim riots and how he and his brother as children are left to fend for themselves. They meet a girl, Latika, who has seen as hard a life and Jamal immediately falls for her. Child actors Ayush, Azharuddin and Rubiana have acted brilliantly. Hats off to the directors, they have managed to extract the impossible out of them.

 

 In a few years, due to unfavourable circumstances, Jamal ventures out alone into the dark and unforgiving city that is Mumbai. His mission is to find his love, Latika who gets separated from him in the prime of his childhood full on hindi film style (running behind a train)

 

Working as a chaiwalla in a call centre he manages to get through as a contestant in the Indian version of Who wants to be a Millionaire. He is ecstatic as he knows his love Latika (Freida Pinto)  watches the show. He manages to answer all the questions as they are related to his life at some point or the other. Anil Kapoor has played the quiz master. He doesn’t have much of a role but whatever little he has done, is done well. In the end as a masala Hindi movie goes, Jamal meets Latika and everybody goes home happy. (and dancing – literally)

 

AR Rehman’s music is the best thing about the movie. The soundtrack is better than most Hollywood films of late. After all, he was nominated along with Hans Zimmer and managed to beat him to win the Golden Globe award.

 

I don’t think this is Danny Boyle’s best film, though. Trainspotting cannot be compared to this movie. I don’t think he has shown poverty to get mileage. Lovleen Tandon and Danny Boyle deserve a pat on the back for doing such good work, and I think they will get more awards too. The film has appealed to the audience and the jury members to no end. I’m not surprised. The Indian film makers should take a clue from the movie about what the international audience likes. We cannot keep sending movies with eight songs in them and expect awards.

 

If I am not mistaken, Amitabh Bachhan issued a statement saying that had it been an Indian director, the film wouldn’t have done this well. I agree with him completely, not because Danny Boyle got preference being a Britisher, but because no Indian director is capable of taking the risk of keeping a film clean without unnecessary songs and dances. 

 

If you notice I have written this review not in a straight script format (if you know what I mean – I mean all over the place). That’s exactly how the films screenplay goes. Overall the film is good ( not the best ever as critics have said across the world). It’s entertainment guaranteed. But it will surely make you think off and on whether it deserves all it has already got. I mean awards.

 

RishiO Review Meter – 3.9/5

Chandni Chowk 2 China Review

I met god this weekend and he told me not to review Chandni Chowk to China. He told me it’s in the readers best interest.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen I apologize. Its not me, its gods decision. Sorry.

By the way, my friend is planning to make a movie, he doesn’t have a budget though, I wonder if Deepika Padukone and Akshay Kumar would act in it…. On second thought even if they did, it’s not a good idea.

 

Nikhil Advani – the director of CC2C hasn’t come out of the theatre after the premiere. He is shocked. His seat is the only seat remaining in the theatre. The rest were torn and broken by the audience, who were mainly his family and friends.

 

Should we sympathize with the distributors? NO. They deserve it. What were they thinking when they saw the trial before buying it. They have now started distributing pamphlets of lesser known jewellery brands on signals and intersections. That’s their new job.

 

I wont say anymore. God will be angry. Really angry. He is planning to sue Nikhil Advani and Akshay Kumar because even he paid 400 bucks to watch it in THEATRE – E – HEAVEN. And like all new theatres this one is also expensive. And he couldn’t get popcorn also because the popcorn guy has still not died and reached heaven yet. He still has to watch CC2C tonight and reach heaven post that instantly.

Australia Review

Australia

It takes you Down Under – (Almost)

 

Baz Luhrmann, the man who made Strictly Ballroom, Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge has come up with this bonanza (a long one) called AUSTRALIA.

 

Don’t get me wrong, a long movie does not mean it’s a bad one. Australia does have the ability to take you on a free ride to a country infested with people clearly confused and insecure about their existence. Australia in the late ‘30s and ‘40s is portrayed in a very strange, dark and isolated way.

 

It’s a very simple story, narrated by a little half-white half-Aboriginal boy called Nulla. An Englishwoman, Lady Ashley (Nicole Kidman) goes Down Under to live with her husband, who runs Faraway Downs, a cattle ranch on ancestral property in the outback. Driven from the port to her destination across rough terrain by a hunky Australian cattle man Drover (Hugh Jackman), she arrives at the rundown ranch manor only to find that Lord Ashley, her husband, has been murdered. The blame is placed on an Aboriginal witch doctor nicknamed King George (David Guplili), who roams the mountains around the ranch, performing strange dances and rituals around bonfires each night.

 

Lady Ashley soon falls out with ruthless cattle station manager Neil Fletcher (played by David Wenham), who does his best to have her sell Faraway Downs to a competitor and   mistreats the Aboriginal servants of the household, particularly young Nulla — he is Fletcher’s illegitimate son and King George’s grandson. Left to her own devices, the aristocratic but enterprising Englishwoman engages Drover to help her run the ranch and predictably, a passionate relationship is born of this arrangement. When Nulla’s Aboriginal mother dies in a tragic accident, he completes the picture of domestic bliss, but the story is only half over.

 

Fletcher, married to a wealthy white heiress, is determined to ruin Lady Ashley’s life, seize the profitable Faraway Downs and have Nulla taken away by the authorities, since the fact that he is the boy’s biological father could destroy his reputation in society. In fact, Australian law back in the ‘30s and ‘40s dictated that half-white half-Aboriginal children be taken away from their indigenous families and put in the hands of the Church, so as to prevent their further ‘diluting’ genteel society through further procreation.

 

When Lady Ashley and Drover fall out over a domestic dispute and World War II breaks out, Nulla is taken away from the ranch and sets in motion another story, one that brings to light the suffering of the ‘Stolen Generation’ against the backdrop of a battle. For those interested in a little trivia, the practice of separating half-caste aboriginal children from their families was only abolished three decades later in the 1970s. In 2006, then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal apology for the horrific practice.

 

Australia is not the kind of movie to encourage tourism, because the country has changed drastically since the early ‘40s. The first half of the movie is better than the second half, which tends to get tedious toward the end. The problem lies in its length. It could’ve been edited better — 15 minutes shorter than it is at present would have made a lot of difference. The music, however, is brilliant. David Hirschfelder, the musical director, has done a great job. The evergreen Somewhere over the Rainbow from the classic movie The Wizard of Oz is the theme song.

 

Overall Australia has its moments. Luckily, they overpower the bits of boredom. Some long movies have repeat value, but unfortunately this one misses out on that privilege.

 

RishiO Rating – 2.8/5