The Slumdog Millionaire

I recently watched 'The Slumdog Millionaire' - the movie that created such an impact in the 2009 Oscars. Well, I would say, It is not a bad movie. But then, is it good enough to win 8 Oscars?

I am no film critic and as most ordinary people do, I tend to judge movies more on the overall impact it has on me rather than dissecting the movie into fine categories (like screenplay, cinematography, etc) and looking at each separately. Speaking from such a standpoint I would say the movie is good, but not that good!

I would say the main impact of the movie is its 'shock effect'. The movie exposes the dirty underbelly of Mumbai and that probably came as a shock to the foreign judges responsible for rating this movie. The storyline is quite outrageous at times and a typical Bollywood ending mars the quality of the movie to some extent. The acting is quite good, though the characters are not quite well developed. The direction is quite good and it does keep you engrossed.

But as I was saying, such fine dissection does not count much for me. On the overall effect I would say, it is not that extraordinary. We have movies like 'The Shawshank Redemption' (which strangely did not win a Oscar but has been ranked first in IMDB for some time now), 'The Return of the King', 'The Godfather' and several others which one can see several times and yet not feel bored - watching them once does not detract from them the pleasure of watching them again. 'The Slumdog Millionaire' certainly does not fall into this category, at least for me.

I am however happy for A.R.Rahman for winning two Oscars - he is finally receiving some recognition of his talent. However I would like to add that I think he has created far better songs than 'Jai Ho' in movies like Roja, Jodha-Akbar and so many others.

In conclusion, I would say that one can watch it - after all a movie winning 8 Oscars is worth watching -, but then, don't keep your expectations too high - it may disappoint you .