Picture Courtesy : Google

Like any Indian I am keeping my fingers crossed. Very eagerly waiting to hear a few Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire . And as a converted Chennaite , I pray at least A R Rahman should get an Oscar. As a Bong I pride in Satyajit Roy receiving his Oscar for life time achievement in cinema – that was India’s first, and now A R Rahman receiving this time . Let’s hope and pray. Having won ten Oscar nominations , four golden globe awards and several other recognitions from across the globe , I am sure , our prayers would be answered.

Saw the movie even before release on net and predicted it would go a long way. Somehow my predictions in movies turn true. I saw the Tamil Movie “ Kalyanaraman” a very long ago and predicted the cast ( Sridevi and Kamalhassan) to make it big which did happen subsequently .

Usually in most of the movies that I rate high, I feel the cast comes out of the screen to ask me , so how was it ? Slumdog Millionaire is the only movie I have seen so far where I felt the Director , music composer , cinematographer or the music composer would now come from behind and ask me, so how was it ?

I am amazed at the editing and direction and overall presentation of the film .

Many people criticized the movie saying it sells on portraying poverty of India . My question is then why is this poverty there then ? Dharavi , the largest slum colony in Asia where the film is shot is a story of hunger and poverty that prevails in urban slums . Is not this a shame for ‘India rising “ ? Instead of criticizing the film why not criticize our inability to transform such slums and thereby transform those lives . I remember after the movie “ City of Joy “ that portrays handpulled rickshaw in Kolkata , huge opinion build up forced the Government to ban handpulled rickshaws from the streets of Kolkata . So , such movies are essentially eye opener .If I don’t act , someone else would definitely act or take advantage .More than 250 million Indians still live in slums . Every day we see urchins like Jamal Malik at traffic signals , picking garbage or in slums but seldom we worry about how they live or if they have any aspirations or do they find love in life.

The film begins with the famous reality TV show - Who wants to be a millionaire? And the contestant on the hot seat is none other than Jamal Malik, who has graduated to become a tea vendor in a call centre coming a hard way from the slums.

The show host is Anil Kapoor giving a brilliant performance, even surpassing the real host Amitabh Bachchan of the show Kaun Banega Crorepati?
Freida Pinto, Mumbai based model known for her De Beers and Skoda ads casts as Latika, another orphan and love life of Jamal Malik played by Dev Patel, an 18-year old actor and ex-world Taekwando champion, giving a gripping performance. Irfan Khan as the police officer did good justice to the role .Danny Boyle, the Hollywood Director ,Simon Beaufoy who beautifully adapts Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup’s novel Q&A on the screen and the co-director Lavleen Tandan who filled the dialogues with Hindi words to make it more earthy and of course our own A R Rahman for his composition deserve a very very special accolade – nothing less than an Oscar !

Slum D also leaves a signature – that is, we can also act and not just simply dance around the tree ! What we essentially need is quality directors, cinematographers and of course scripts.

My rating is 5 out of 5. If you have not seen it , you must go and if you have already seen it, you may like to see this again !

Don’t think I am the PRO of the movie company , I mean it.