Producer: Christian Colson, Paul Smith, Tessa Ross
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Anil Kapoor, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Imran Hasnee, Irfaan Khan, Madhur Mittal
Music: Rahman AR

There’s no doubt that Slumdog Millionaire has lived up to its hype. What’s also amazing is that it took a British director to take a Bollywood movie to Hollywood, even though movies of similar caliber have been made but gone unnoticed.

Danny Boyle’s Golden Globe-winning, Oscar-nominated wonder starts in a crammy cell where the protagonist, Jamal Malik is interrogated at the behest of the game show host who thinks that he is a fraud. In flashbacks, Jamal tells the torturing cops about life in the slums with his brother Salim, the municipal school, his mother’s death, his tryst with the beggar industry, and basically why he knows the answers to all of the questions.

Slumdog Millionaire has you glued to the screen for most of the time. Unlike other Bollywood movies, it moves away from fantasy bringing viewers closer to reality, though at times it can get disturbing. From corrupt police to colloquial Hindi, sex workers, and riots, the movie gets to the core of the maximum city.

The 3 lead actors Dev Patel, Madhur Mittal and Freida Pinto do a decent job, though it’s the child actors of their characters that steal the show. While Ankur Vikal, the evil Maman, has heralded the age of a new kind of baddie.