Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Director: Danny Boyle
Principle Actors: Dev Patel, Madhur Mittal, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Frieda Pinto
While watching Slumdog Millionaire, I couldn’t help but draw some parallels to City of God (2002), the beautifully brutal and raw Brazilian film about life in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. I imagine I made the comparison because both films depict what life is like in the slums of foreign cities. Whereas City of God focuses on the criminal enterprises and underworld of Rio de Janeiro, Slumdog Millionaire really focuses on the circumstances of living in the slums of Mumbai, India, and what life is like in them. Slumdog Millionaire isn’t as “hard” as City of God is, but it does provide a thoroughly enjoyable look at life as a “slumdog” in India through the lives of two brothers, Jamal and Salim.
Slumdog Millionaire follows Jamal and Salim Malik from their lives as little boys running around the overcrowded and filthy slums of Mumbai up to their lives as grown men in the present day. I’ve always appreciated films with narratives that follow characters over many years and recount their affiliations, relationships and decisions. Some films can’t handle the burden of an intricate and generations-long storyline and collapse under its pressure (see: Robert DeNiro flicks 1900 and Once Upon a Time in America). Slumdog Millionaire, however, does a fantastic job of relaying the story to us, and its best scenes are of the two brothers as pre-teen homeless scamps trying to eke out an existence. All of the flashbacks tie in seamlessly to the present day characters and everything is very easy to follow.
The plot device that brings us back into the history of the characters is the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? You see, Jamal Malik, a man who grew up in the slums, is one question away from becoming the first person in the history of the show to win 20 million rupees. Of course, since he is a slumdog, the host of the show and the police don’t believe he could possibly know these answers without cheating, and the film opens with Jamal being tortured and interrogated as to how he knew the answers to the questions.
Each question Jamal was asked on the show tied into some seminal moment in his life, and each time the police chief asks, “How did you get X question right,” we’re treated to a flashback that relays how Jamal came to know that information while at the same time fleshing out the characters and setting up the story. Though Who Wants to be a Millionaire may be a bit passé and not have much relevance to modern-day America (is the Meredith Viera version even on anymore?), it’s amazing how well the show works as a vehicle to relay this information. At points while watching the film I marveled about how well done this was.
Jamal’s rationale for knowing the answers to the questions on the game show takes us to a sadistic orphanage, panhandling in front of the Taj Mahal, and a hilarious scatological story involving the most famous actor in India. The young versions of Jamal and Salim are played with gusto by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, respectively, and the admirable performances by these children provide the backbone of the film.
Slumdog Millionaire includes a love story, which I found to be a bit cliché and borderline unnecessary. While at the aforementioned orphanage, Jamal meets Latika, and immediately an unspoken love brews between the two. Due to a series of fairly contrived mishaps and occurrences, the two are perennially prevented from reuniting. Latika is always just out of his grasp. She becomes involved with gangsters (seemingly against her will) who keep her under lock and key. In one scene, they arrange to meet at a train station and run away together, and right before they’re about to reunited she is captured and wrestled into a waiting car right in front of Jamal. The love story wasn’t offensive, and didn’t really take anything away from the picture, but I though the film would have worked without it fine, and it didn’t really add anything for me.
Slumdog Millionaire is a very impressive, engrossing and entertaining film. Was it worth the best picture award? The only other nominee I have seen is Milk, and this film was certainly better. The story is brilliant and fun, the acting is well done, and the direction is top-notch. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether it deserved the Oscar or not.
A-
Won: Cinematography, Director, Editing, Music-Original Score, Music-Original Song, Sound, Writing-Adapted Screenplay, Picture
Nominated: Music-Original Song, Sound Editing
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Principle Actors: Sean Connery, Tetsuro Tamba, Donald Pleasance, Akiko Wakabayashi
I’ll be honest; my James Bond experience is fairly limited. The only Bond films I had seen before this were Goldfinger, Dr. No, and Thunderball, and I watched all of those within the past year or so. Despite my naiveté, I know what I’m going to see when I watch a Bond film long before I put the DVD into the player. Chances are, I’ll see Bond cool and in control of the situation, Bond being smooth with the ladies, various laborious and unsuccessful attempts on Bond’s life, a colorful villain, an even more colorful plotline, Bond saving the day, and Bond and his female accomplice dashing to escape as the supervillain’s compound explodes around them (followed by a smooch as the credits begin to roll).
Not that I’m complaining! That’s why we watch James Bond films, and that’s why there have been 22 official (and one unofficial) Bond movies to date. Everyone knows what they’re in store for when they’re watching the Empire’s top secret agent, and sometimes, when you have a character like Bond, its better that way.
When it comes down to it, plotlines in James Bond films, especially the Connery editions, are largely interchangeable and irrelevant, and serve only to give Bond a locale in which to operate and a villain in which to fight. You Only Live Twice is no different. In this installment, villainous mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld is capturing American and Russian spacecraft in an attempt to make each nation think that the other is responsible. His goal is to create war between the two superpowers, so that in the ensuing chaos the world will be ripe for the picking and he’ll be able to take over. Of course, James Bond is tasked with stopping the calculating Blofeld and saving the world.
Like in every Bond film, our protagonist is always in control, no matter how dire the situation may be. I touched upon this type of character in my review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and it applies here as well. James Bond knows what he has to do to complete his assigned task, and he does it. I admire James Bond and I like watching these films not because he gets laid all the time, but because of how he handles himself. We all wish we could act how he does. He always makes the right move and nothing is too big for him to handle.
There are a few cheesy scenes and plot points in You Only Live Twice, as it seems there are in all 23 of these films. Though we’ve already discussed the relative pointlessness of the plot, it’s still incredibly flimsy. The most egregiously ridiculous part of You Only Live Twice is when Bond confidante Tiger Tanaka works to make Bond a “Japanese” person. Apparently, that only involves giving him a short-cut black wig and a kimono, and at that point he goes undetected amongst the surrounding villagers. Of course I can overlook this ridiculousness, because this is a Bond film, after all, but I still wanted to point it out.
I apologize if this review sounds like it could fit any Bond movie, but I think that’s part of the point. Each one is very similar and yet independently enjoyable. It’s a testimonial to the Bond character that he can make us care about these films even though pretty much the same things happen every time. There’s a comfort in brushing off ridiculous plot points and basking in the coolness and calmness of the main character. You don’t have to question these movies, because you can just think to yourself, “So what? It’s Bond!” and just ride the wave. Though it might sound like a mindless pursuit, once in a while it can be a fun and exhilarating undertaking.
B
John Lacey
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