Slumdog Millionaire is a bad film, an actor once said in a public platform. He had his reasons and most of them are not far from the truth. Slumdog Millionaire has won an ensemble of Oscars and it is a thing of pride for Bollywood’s best music director A.R.Rahman , lyricist Gulzaar and sound-mixer Resul Pookutty for having won home the glory But let us ask ourselves is is Slumdog Millionaire really a good movie from Bollywood standards? If yes, then how come Slumdog Millionaire has flopped or been rejected by Indian audiences?
Slumdog Millionaire is just another average wanna-be Bollywood film. We are not talking about the poverty aspect which was highlighted by Amitabh Bachchan. We are talking about the movie content purely, which is notches below the standard of what can be called quality film-making. Slumdog Milionaire has the same lost and found formula done to death by Indian film-makers. Haven’t we seen an street urchin becoming a ganglord, in the 70s Bollywood flicks?
What is Slumdog Millionaire trying to say? That it is okay to steal shoes from the Taj Mahal? Is this the message that the movie portrays to young children? Also, how comes Anil Kapoor who plays the quiz master so quietly sneak in Jamal(Dev) to the police? How come there is no uproar? How come the media is never interested? And why will the police unnecessarily grill the boy, give third degree treatment to a someone who has won public adulation and one crore rupees? Not only is the plot far-fetched, there are also clichés galore: Salim and Jamal are muslims, the other musketeer Lathika HAS to be from the other caste, otherwise the plot will not move ahead. When the two boys are separated from Lathika, she HAS to turn into a prostitute. The director is clearly going the clichéd way which has ever been experimented so many times by our Bollywood film-makers. Where is the creativity? If an Indian film-maker had the same film, I seriously doubt the critics would have given the film four or five stars.
Jamal grows up to be a ‘chai-wallah’ in a call center. But he answers questions in the ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ in the finest UK accent, akin to an MBA grad from UK? I have yet to see a chaiwallah from a call center who speaks such eloquent English. Let’s look at the performances. Anil Kapoor has clearly over-acted in his wanna-be Clint Eastwood accent. Praises and award nominations are being heaped on the dusky Freida Pinto who played Lathika in Slumdog Millionaire. But is it really an engrossing performance? Far from it. Looking above from the platform and giving a model pose does not call for an arresting performance. Her real test will lie when she gets to do performance driven roles.
A.R.Rahman has given far better music in his previous albums and one rues the fact that the Oscar fraternity completely ignored him for a much superior score in Lagaan. One can sense that the honor is primarily because of a white connection (read Danny Boyle). Though the plot is not really convincing, the treatment of Slumdog Millionaire and the screenplay is admittedly good enough. But that does not mean Bollywood has been bad in screenplays of late. Movies like Rang De Basanti, Dil Chahta Hai, Ghajini and even Gangster were also better if not equal in terms screenplay treatment. So there is nothing in Slumdog Millionaire to feel ‘wow’ about, at least to the people who have grown up on Bollywood films. Also let’s not forget that Slumdog Millionare is essentially an English film, the artistes and some of the crew is Indians.
Dyslexia is a major concern in the US, and the truth is the best movie on dyslexia in the world was made by an Indian- Taare Zameen Par. Isn’t it a shame that we are unnecessarily heaping praises on a mediocre film Slumdog Millionaire when a masterpiece like Taare Zameen Par was ignored by the Oscar jury. Let us be practical and assess the quality of movies with a sense of discern. Something which Indians actually did-Slumdog Millionaire is a flop in India.
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