Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire (2009) - English

Directors: Danny Boyle

Co-director – India: Loveleen Tandan

Writers: Simon Beaufoy (screenplay) and Vikas Swarup (novel)

Genre: Crime | Drama | Romance

Cast: Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Irfan Khan, Freida Pinto, Saurabh Shukla, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Mahesh Manjarekar and others

Music Director: A. R. Rehman

Awards: Won 8 Oscars. Another 62 wins & 29 nominations

“Slumdog Millionaire” bagged 8 awards at Oscar night, 4 awards for Indians. So it was very proud moment for all Indians. There is big debate on if the movie was Indian or not. So I don’t know if we can say an Indian movie won an Oscar or not. But I still feel elated because a small budget movie which talks about kids in slum one so many awards not only at Oscar but all over the world. We always enjoy it more when underdogs go on to win something and that’s what “Slumdog Millionaire is all about.

Slumdog Millionaire is a story about a Mumbai teen Jamal played by Dev Patel, who born and brought up in Mumbai slums, works as Chiwalla, becomes a contestant in “Kaun Banega Karorpati” which is Indian version of “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” And he eventually wins the game show and become a Millionaire. So how he did that? How an uneducated Chiwalla wins such a big show? Does he cheat? Host of the show played by Anil Kapoor certainly thought so. He sends him to Police. Police Inspector played by Irfan Khan interrogates him. And while interrogation his story gets unwind, how he gets all the answers from the events from his life.

As movie goes into flashback of Jamal’s life, we enter into slums of Mumbai where Jamal grown up with his older brother Salim and love of his life Latika. Now we get to see the darker side of Mumbai, where riots happened in Mumbai. Where police men do nothing while Muslims were slaughtered, where orphan kids are trained to beg by goons, where eyes of these kids take out mercilessly so that they can earn more money, where these kids end up either being beggar, goons themselves or if they are girl kids they end up being prostitutes. This is the reason there was controversy over this movie in India. This is the reason why people like Amitabh Bachchan were critical about it. It isn’t like they wanted to cover up the darker side of India but they do have a problem when non Indians just wants to highlight only darker side of India and want to rate India as third world.

Thankfully movie is not only highlighting the poverty of Mumbai. It shows the optimism of these people living slums, how each and every human trying to improve his life by any available ways. Like Jamal, his brother Salim and Latika all started their journey at same point from but took different paths of life. Latika goes through brothel and end up being a mistress of a goon’s lord. Salim took path of theft, extortion and killing. Thankfully movie does not suggest that all of these kids end up being beggars, criminals or prostitutes. There are some like protagonist Jamal who could grew out of this dark world and in the end destiny give him a hand to win millions. As they say everyone chose their own Destiny.

The movie is adapted from the novel of Vikas Swarup “Q&A”. After the amount of hype movie got the book and author will certainly going to benefit from that. They also change the title of the novel on the Movie title.

This movie wouldn’t have been as good as it is now without the music of the film. A. R. Rahman did excellent job as usual. He deserved all the awards and accolades he is getting now and will be getting in future.

Director Danny did amazingly good job. Casting of movie was spot on, I think co-director Lovaleen Tandan played huge role in casting. The kids were simply outstanding. We must also value the efforts of producers for what they are doing for all these kids. Taking them to Oscar and then to Disneyland is commendable. Some of these kids are really from slum, if this move won’t had happened to them, then Disneyland or going abroad at their age was not possible for them. Dev Patel and Freida Pinto did their job very well. My favorite scene in the movie and which makes big impact is when the kid Jamal jumps in the load of shit just to get autograph from Amitabh Bachchan.

If I have to rate the movie I will give 9 out of 10.

www.switch2life.com

"Ghajini"

Movie Review: Ghajini – Hindi (2008)

Director: A. R. Murugadoss.

Writers: A. R. Murugadoss

Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

Cast: Aamir Khan, Asin Thottumkal, Jiah Khan, Pradeep Rawat and Others

Music: A. R. Rahman

Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi.

‘Ghajini’ was one of the most awaited movies of the year. It was biggest movie of the year and as it turned out it was also biggest hit of the year. The movie was talk of the town months before it actually released on 25^th Dec 2008. Thanks to new hair cut and eight abs physique of Aamir Khan which he flaunted all over the town and now known as Ghajini look. Which actually help promoting the film in great deal. It kept the curiosity of the people alive till the movie released and after the movie released it became even bigger rage and new style statement.

As for the movie it starts with a medical student Sunita played by Jiah Khan wants to investigate a case of Sanjay Singhania played by Aamir Khan. Who is suffering from anterograde amnesia that means he has very short memory, he can remember things only for 15 minutes nothing more. But his case was more interesting because he lost his memory in an incident in which the bad Guy Ghajini Dharmatma played by Pradeep Rawat killed his girlfriend Kalpana played by Asin Thottumkal and hit him on the head which actually cause his short term memory. So this is a story of how Sanjay overcome his deficiency to get his revenge by killing the bad guy Ghajini.

The movie is a remake of Tamil movie with the same name. It was also directed by A. R. Murugadoss. It was enacted by Surya, Asin, Nayantara, and Pradeep Rawat. I watched this movie in Tamil. Actually I don’t understand a single word in Tamil but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the movie. Even though I could not understand the meaning of the dialogues due to language barrier, I didn’t miss any emotion expressed through these dialogues and I think that will be solely certifies the quality of the movie. So it wasn’t the story which drawn me to the movie theatre, it was Aamir Khan which more often than not means value for money of my Ticket. And I also wanted to find out how he represented or we should say recycled this movie in new colors. Aamir did amazing job on this movie both as producer and actor. The tamil actor Surya also did great job but what Aamir did better was he brought more glamour to the role and as usual glamour is not always realistic, it was more fantastic. I feel like what Aamir did to this movie as a producer is what Dilip Chabaria the famous DC who modifies any car into ultimate beauty. He modified the Tamil Ghajini.

Aamir khan did great job as an actor. He again proved how seriously he takes his job and how much dedicated he is to his films as he worked really hard to get the physique which he is flaunting in this film so often. Then the director A. R. Murugadoss did wonderful as director as well as writer because I find scenes of the movie, plot of the movie was simply brilliant. Ideas like protagonist writing on his body and taking photographs was brilliant and so much more important for the film. He changed the climax of the movie from the Tamil version but that did not make any difference as it wasn’t important how he kills the bad guy but he kills him and gets his revenge with his short term memory. The essence of movie was love story, mystery and a revenge which director handled very well.

Asin was brilliant, even though she is superstar in south this was her debut. And she had a dream debut as not only she gets to work with Aamir Khan she gets a fantastic role to play which any actress will envy to play. This role of Kalpana can only be compared to Geet in Jab We met played by Kareena Kapoor. She played the same role in the Tamil version. Another actor repeated from the Tamil Movie is Pradip Rawat as Ghajini but he fail to impressed he was overshadowed by Aamir Khan. I think when film is titled on villain’s name then they should have cast bigger actor than him. It would have made the movie even better. Jiah Khan’s performance was OK nothing great she should work harder on her accent. She is one lucky girl who worked with two biggest names Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan so early in her career. A. R. Rahman as usual gave 6 blockbuster songs he seems to be competing with himself and coming up with better music with every film.

Lot of people had problem with the violence in the movie. Many people find it hard to believe that man of Aamir’s stature even though with 8 Abs can hit 6 – 7 feet tall bulky guys. Yes it isn’t new thing in bollywood, it has been happening for ages but it was difficult to digest the way Aamir hits them till there turns other way around. It was quite remarkable achievement by him. But let us just say that highly dedicated people like Aamir’s character who badly wanted revenge can do anything at least in movies. And that’s what we love about movie isn’t it the fulfillment of fantasies.

One funny quote I read about this movie came from very famous artist M. F. Hussain. He demanded that the Government should ban this movie as it has unwanted violence. It was surprising and funny to come from him as he himself fighting for creative liberty for his own art and he wants censorship on others creativity.

Anyways for me this is good entertaining movie, may be not list in all time classic movies but surely count in one of the most popular movie in bollywood. After success of this movie I am sure the Action and thriller movies will come back which took backseat for so long. As for Ghajini if I have to rate the movie I’ll give 7 out of 10.

www.switch2life.com

Will Oscar come to India?

Will A R Rahman win an Oscar? For the answer we have to wait, watch and hope as no one knows that today. But two things are certain even today, that he is most deserving candidate to win this award and after winning ‘Golden Globe’ he is just inches away from the glory of Oscars. ‘Golden Globe’ is seen as precursor of Oscars. And Rahman has got strong will power of one billion people backing him and hoping for his success.

But thinking of Oscar we should not forget to celebrate this moment also as ‘Golden Globe’ is also one of the top most honor anybody can get in showbiz. So we can not underestimate his achievements and enjoy it irrespective of his winning the Oscar or not. He always mad all of us Indian proud but when he received such internationally acclaimed award we feel even more proud of him. He is musical genius and is a true ‘Mozart of India.’ He is brilliant at what he does and he is doing it consistently for about two decades now. His success lies in his versatility. He had created some unforgettable romantic, soulful composition but at the same time he is able to create many feet tapping numbers too. He has big fan following in India who always waiting for his next creation eagerly. He is the best and busiest music composer in India who always gives original music. The word original should be highlighted in bold letters as it is a big achievement of him when we are considering current Indian composers. Because many of the Indian composers’ inspirations come easily and so naturally that they never realized that they are copying someone else’s creation.

A R Rahman already won many national and international awards in his flourishing career. If you want to find out nearly unending list you can visit A R Rahman’s official website. And this list is going to be longer and longer in coming years. But ‘Golden Globe’ award is in many ways special for him and for Indian music as this will put both of them on the top of International music radar. Both of them get the recognition internationally what they deserve from long time. And if he wins Oscar it will be icing on the cake. Actually before this award I used to think why we wait for any international awards or Oscar for that matter. We have our own 1 billion people and awards of our own. Why do we care about Oscar so much? But I must admit watching A R Rahman winning the Golden Globe and accepting the award thrill me never the less. And it is the biggest talking point for not only news channels but for general public. And what was more thrilling and exciting was A R Rahman’s speech after winning the award. He didn’t forgot to thank one billion people of India because he knew how much it meant for Indians.

A R Rahman is in a true sense ambassador of India and Indian culture. He is down to earth, and humble although little bit of arrogance from his side would have been neglected by everyone as he on top of the world. So let’s cross our fingers and hope for the Oscar but he is already a winner in our hearts.

P.S. : Whenever I think of A R Rahman first thing comes to mind is the song ‘Vande Mataram’ sung and composed by A R Rahman. Whenever I listen to this song I always gets goose bump and I am sure all the Indian feel the same.

www.switch2life.com