Call it delayed or lazy, I just saw Slumdog Millionaire last night. Hoped to see the movie with an unbiased outlook. I have been BABU in Mumbai. BABU --> Born And Brought Up. I do feel a special bond with the city. I have seen the highs and lows of Mumbai as well. The initial reaction that I felt after seeing the first 15 minutes was that Ram Gopal Verma had written the screenplay of the movie. No one has captured the slum and gloom of Mumbai as well as Varma has.
The movie was definitely enjoyable but certainly not Oscar-worthy. There were much better movies in competition this year at the Oscars for best movie, best director and other awards that this movie took home. A R Rahman deserves an Oscar but not for this movie. Lagaan was a masterpiece but he was not even nominated for that.
As has been discussed in various other blogs and news articles, if an Indian director had made this movie, it probably would not have gathered so much attention, not to mention worldwide awards. As far as the 'reality' that has been depicted in the movie, people in Mumbai and certainly the rest of the country surely know that the prostitution rings and the ganglords go hand in hand. This is not the first movie to exploit that scenario. Madhur Bhandarkar's Chandni Bar was and it was a movie brilliantly written and executed and of course won him a National Award. That was a real "reality check". Not Slumdog Millionaire.
Also the fact that most dialogues were in English just didn't hit a chord with me. At least the youngest Salim, Jamal and Latika had dialogues in raw bambaiyaa hindi which was fantastic. This is the first movie that I have seen in which the very first dialogue is "MotherF@#$%^" in hindi which sounds even more disgusting. Kudos to the director to bring that up :)
Much has been said about Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, but I thought they were strictly average. Mohd. Azharuddin was spectacular as the youngest "Salim".
All said, the movie has been lapped up by the Western world but not so much in India (probably, rightly so). The movie wasn't that great!!
The movie was definitely enjoyable but certainly not Oscar-worthy. There were much better movies in competition this year at the Oscars for best movie, best director and other awards that this movie took home. A R Rahman deserves an Oscar but not for this movie. Lagaan was a masterpiece but he was not even nominated for that.
As has been discussed in various other blogs and news articles, if an Indian director had made this movie, it probably would not have gathered so much attention, not to mention worldwide awards. As far as the 'reality' that has been depicted in the movie, people in Mumbai and certainly the rest of the country surely know that the prostitution rings and the ganglords go hand in hand. This is not the first movie to exploit that scenario. Madhur Bhandarkar's Chandni Bar was and it was a movie brilliantly written and executed and of course won him a National Award. That was a real "reality check". Not Slumdog Millionaire.
Also the fact that most dialogues were in English just didn't hit a chord with me. At least the youngest Salim, Jamal and Latika had dialogues in raw bambaiyaa hindi which was fantastic. This is the first movie that I have seen in which the very first dialogue is "MotherF@#$%^" in hindi which sounds even more disgusting. Kudos to the director to bring that up :)
Much has been said about Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, but I thought they were strictly average. Mohd. Azharuddin was spectacular as the youngest "Salim".
All said, the movie has been lapped up by the Western world but not so much in India (probably, rightly so). The movie wasn't that great!!
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