Slumdog Millionaire

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Slumdog Millionaire (B). Before seeing this movie, I read a review in which the reviewer claimed that this is one of the best movies he has ever seen. That's far too extravagant a claim, in my humble opinion, but it is worth watching. When the movie opens, we see a young Indian man named Jamal Malik enduring a harsh police interrogation. It quickly develops that he is accused of cheating as a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Much of the movie then consists of flashbacks as Jamal tells a savvy police inspector how he came to know the answers to the various questions and why he wanted to be on the show at all. We see Jamal's childhood in the slums of Bombay, growing up an orphan with his older brother Salim. We also see him befriend a little girl named Latika, who is of course destined to be the great love of his life. It's a nice little tale, if rather heavily dependent on coincidence. Perhaps not what you would expect from director Danny Boyle (28 Days Later).