Slumdog Millionaire

You might say I was a little prejudice about the movies even before I saw it. If a movie is good rarely you see its cast and crew running around in circles going here and there. People will not go on yapping about the movie if it’s a master piece. So I was really circumspect about the movie. 30mins into the movie I felt completely justified.

If many people tell you that a movie is good, then it has to be good! If you say its not then you are not normal. I get the feeling this might be one of the reasons for the popularity of the movie or they might have paid the critics off. The western audience can be excused. They might have been under the impression that this was an “ethnic Indian” movie and we all know what purchasing power those two words have.

The problem I have with the movie is that for a realistic movie it chooses to be realistic when it pleases. I do not have any problem with the showing of the slums and slum life and the various atrocities surrounding it. If we want to be a developed country we need to address these issues. It could well be an eye opener for many. The thing that moved me the most was the love story in the movie. The lead character was in love with a girl who was literally raped by his brother and who was a full time prostitute, kind of put things in perspective for me.

I couldn’t understand what’s so great about the movie. The story isn’t that great. I do agree that India has many problems but it’s not as screwed up as the movie shows. Will any host mock his contestant about his life, in public? Will an overburdened Indian police officer even give a damn about a person who “ALLEGEDLY” cheated in a TV game show? Had it been made by some Indian director the critics would have definitely tore the movie apart. But as its not, it has to be good. God knows how the Hindi speaking children in the slum all of a sudden speaks English with an accent. It would have been much better if they had spoken English from start itself. The whole rise form the slum life was quite ridiculous.

The thing that bugged me the most was a line in the movie where a conversation broke out on the real Indian and the real America. That was way too condescending. I know that all of India is not developed but since when did the slums of Mumbai represent the real India? Am I also a part of India, aint I real? Don’t get me started off on the “real America”. 

I have never understood why we Indians feel that if anything is remotely associated with India, it’s Indian. The movie is not an Indian movie. We have many good Indian movies, embrace that. Are we that desperate that we have to find ridiculous connections and adopt non Indian movies as Indian? I wouldn’t say that this was an American or a British movie but it was more of an international movie. I hate it when Indians make something which is remotely associated to India as Indian. We are much better than that.  

The movie is definitely a good watch. Lets not over hype it!

jane tu ya jaane na

Before going to any Hindi movie, I lower my expectations and brace myself for a new low in cinematic experience. The same happened with this movie. This movie is not as stupid as most Hindi movies are. The chance of you getting bored or feeling like running way is very less. Most people wont have any difficulty sitting through the entire movie. It is quite entertaining. Unlike the various "comedy" films in bollywood one would definitely have some laughs here.

Coming to the story. Well its nothing new. The whole movie has been copied/"inspired" from various other movies. The whole naration of the movie by the friends of the leading characters to an outsider has been copied from at lest two movies (if my memory is right, chalte chalte). The whole concept of a boy and gal cant just be friends is the backbone of most movies in the Hindi film industry. The whole story looks quite a lot familiar to a Malayalam movie called "niram". Every thing in this movie is very predictable, which is how it should be in these types of movies. People see these movies to rekindle their dreams and the movies is supposed to make its viewers wish their lives would be similar to the ones of the characters in the movie. I thought that the role played by the Khan brothers was quite wasteful. It felt like the write was short of ideas and to make the movie long enough they were added. There are numerous other flaws in the film, but you will tend to forgive that because of the whole innocent nature of the film. The ending was horrendous though. About a 100 police officers chasing Imran Khan around an airport, under the impression that he is a terrorist, and not shooting at him with the 100's of guns they had. I could go on saying about that damn ending but it will never be enough. The whole seen was very distasteful, again it seemed like something to just give the movie an appropriate length.

I found the actors in the movie to be quite decent. They could give the present set of actors a run for their money. Most of them are relatively new hence I do not think they did a bad job. All the guys can only get better from here.

Coming back to the movie, I wonder why people make movies which are the exact copy of other movies or bits and pieces of other movies. It is just a waste of resources. It would be better off seeing the original. This movie is a good example of a lack of creative talent in the Hindi film industry. I would say, if u are just looking for a few laughs go for the movie. There is nothing creative or new about this movie, very predictable, just the same old friendship/love story. There is nothing that you can take back after you see the movie. Unfortunately this is one of the better Hindi movies that has been released in this year, which tells something about the industry.