Fanciful, epic and exuberantly paced, Slumdog Millionaire chronicles the life of Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a dirt-poor orphan who captivates the masses as he wins a fortune on India's most popular quiz show. Told in non-linear style, the movie switches among harrowing stories of Jamal's childhood in the slums of Mumbai to his moments of awkward glory as a contestant on the show to his sudden incarceration and ensuing interrogation. It is this questioning by a police inspector (Irfan Khan) that elicits the compelling flashbacks of his early youth.
In the UK the film seems to be a huge hit, although there are alos crtics in teh UK who disagree. in the guardian film website one of the review is quite4 positive:
Despite the extravagant drama and some demonstrations of the savagery meted out to India's street children, this is a cheerfully undemanding and unreflective film with a vision of India that, if not touristy exactly, is certainly an outsider's view; it depends for its full enjoyment on not being taken too seriously.
In India, where the film was set (Mumbai), reviews were qutie negative for example below http://www.apunkachoice.com/dyn/movies/english/slumdog_millionaire/slumdog_millionaire-review.html-
Saving the answer for the last, let it be said at the outset that Slumdog Millionaire is a kind of movie that is made only once in a while. It requires more than just an accomplished director to tell a story that cuts through cultural barriers while still being rooted in the grime and crime of Mumbai’s netherworld that lies in the shade of the symbols of India Shining – the skyscrapers and malls. It takes more than just a good ensemble cast to make a film like ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ work. Everything has to fall in place – the script, screenplay, direction, acting, music, editing – in sync with each other to have a movie as frisky, stark, shocking and uplifting as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. It doesn’t happen often. May be it’s the stuff of destiny. Danny Boyle and Beaufoy have stuck to English, rather than Hindi dialogues for the most part of the film, despite the fact that you would hardly find an uneducated slumkid or a chaiwala in India who speaks English fluently. But why Boyle and Beaufoy did so is understandable. They were making a film for the international audience. If not for this cinematic liberty, the movie would not have cut across the cultural fault-lines as it does now.
http://www.apunkachoice.com/movies/- this is an Indian Film site. (where the review above was from).
However from the same review it gives a mixed opinion even though the article was mostly negative, the review site claims that the main character deserves an oscar and it gives the film four stars. The last paragraph of the review states :There are some brilliantly executed sequences in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ that prove Boyle’s mettle as a director. The kid Jamaal, locked in a makeshift toilet, jumps into a shit-hole just to get the autograph of his favourite filmstar. Or when the grown up brothers meet again on an under-construction building. Or the exhilarating finale when Jamaal doesn’t know the answer to the question that’s ironically the most personal to him. After all the suspense and drama, the movie leaves you in an ecstatic mood with Rahman’s ‘Jai Ho’ (a dash of Bollywood song and dance in the end) and sends you home with a bounce in your walk and smile on your face.
In India there is also a paper called THE HINDU which is similar to our THE TIMES and there have been a few negative articles about the film and how it has reflected on the Indian public- http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/009200901271451.htm.
