Slumdog Millionaire is over-rated!?

"Slumdog Millionaire is going to be like Crash". A friend was in town last night, and I went down to Montevallo for a small get together at his host's place. Montevallo is a small liberal arts school about 20 miles south of here, and it has a laidback progressive vibe that I love. And they keep up with their movies and stuff over there, and when my friend Paul said that, I was like, "Hmm.. What do you mean!? It's nowhere in the same class as a Crash."

Paul hadn't seen Slumdog yet, as of this writing, but he said that the year Crash won, people were fascinated with the movie when it came out, but after a while, like a year or so, after the Oscars, people realized that Crash was over-rated and it was a major fuckup on the Academy's part, awarding the Best Picture Oscar to Crash.

That Paul would say something like that was no surprise to me. He is very well-informed on most any subject, but also very opinionated. He usually says controversial things, hoping to provoke a response. I'm sure we all know people like that.

I have to disagree with him on Crash. I thought it was one of the better movies made in the last decade. But, when it came to Slumdog, I had to agree. I think people are going to look at all the other movies in the next couple of years, and are going to realize, "Did we really pick Slumdog Millionaire over all these other movies!? Duh! What were we thinking?"

And I do not say this because I'm one of those snobs that likes to diss on anything popular just to show-off or whatever. Neither am I one of those people from India who is outraged that Slumdog shows India in a bad light.

It is a movie. Get over it already. It's not a movie about India. It is a movie, set in India. There is a major difference.

So what if it highlights poverty in India. So what if it shows the plight of beggars in Indian society. Or shows that there is a huge economic divide in India. So what if it shows that there were riots in Bombay, and that some of the police turned a blind eye to it, for whatever reasons. So what if it shows police brutality and torture in India. Or the mass adulation, craze even for Cinema, esp. but not limited to superstars.

The movie shows all of this and more. And for the most part, it gets a lot right. To start off with it is not a documentary. It is a movie. And by definition, a movie is entertainment. And that it does. And does well.

But even if it was a documentary, it is not material that is being reported as fact. It is a point of view, or opinion. So if the makers of Slumdog decided to make a movie in which poverty and hardship, and the struggle that millions of Indians go through on a daily basis was highlighted, that is their prerogative.

In point of fact, the gorgeous Freida Pinto who plays Lathika in the movie, in an interview summed it up best, when she said, not in these exact words, but more or less, that: Slumdog is about all of India in the sense, that there are a billion plus people in India. And in an environment such as that, there is a cut-throat mentality. It is a dog eat dog world. And just to survive is not enough. So, by necessity, Indians are not just survivors, they are fighters. Hundreds of millions in India they struggle, they gravitate towards the metros, towards the population centers. It is a struggle, and they know that. But they still do because they are chasing the dream of a better life. People work all their lives, just to buy overpriced housing in a city like Bombay (Mumbai today). And nothing is handed to people on a platter, and as a result, Indians are fighters.

I happen to completely agree with her. Over-population is one of the biggest problems facing India. But it is also the source of our biggest strengths.

So again, I have no problem with the subject matter of Slumdog Millionaire. And technically, it is a magnificient production. The quality of the cinematography, the score or OST, the music, the songs, the editing, and the direction (all of which won Oscars this year) is superlative. So what then!? What is it?

The problem is the actual story. It amazes the viewer with it's complexity and layers. Unfortunately, while it is doing all of that, and linking seemingly random events in our protagonist Jamal's life to questions asked while he's on the gameshow, an Indian version of "Who wants to be a Millionaire?", it forgets the details. There are glaring plot holes. Granted, some of these may not be obvious to a lot of people who are unfamiliar with India. Just google: Slumdog Millionaire plot holes, and voila, you'll know what I'm talking about. Some of the best links to said plot holes are:

http://www.rediff.com/movies/2009/jan/09review-slumdog-millionaire-sumit.htm

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Rant-Really-Slumdog-Millionaire-12109.html

http://ferdyonfilms.com/2009/03/slumdog-millionaire-2008.php

Slumdog, despite its promise never seems to rise above any other typical Indian masala movie. It is very formulaic. I'm from India, and I've seen hundreds of other similar movies, with two major differences. Slumdog is technically superior to almost every single one of those Indian movies, whether they were made in Bollywood or Kollywood, or wherever. But forget the technical superiority for a minute. If you take any Indian movie, make the characters speak English instead of local languages, and remove the meaningless and completely random song-dance, and ridiculous fight sequences, you have dozens of movies, every year, that are probably at least as good as Slumdog, when it comes to story-telling. And because I'm originally from India, and none of the more gritty stuff in the movie is shocking or even mildly surprising to me, it left me more than a little blase.

In essence, Slumdog Millionaire is all hype, no substance. A Best Picture Oscar winner needs to be more. It needs to be better.