slumdog millionaire is just a group of plot devices moving through a childishly contrived plot,
doing solely what said plot requires them to do, with no heart to make me believe otherwise.

these anti-characters go through NO development or change whatsoever, they begin the terrible
"story" as good or evil, with no grey area, and remain good or evil when the "story" ends, they don't even have much personality, jamal is good... because he's good, latika is good...
because she's good, saleem is bad... because he's bad... they have no logical motivation, and
before you try and tell me that saleem killing the owner of an orphanage/brothel is what made
him evil... NO, saleem lets go of latika when they're escaping, saleem locks jamal inside a toilet, forcing him to swim through feces to get out (which is played for laughs)... saleem is a terrible person before he shoots the guy, and he's a terrible person after he shoots the
guy... the fact that these aren't characters means the only time i care about anyone in the entire movie, is when saleem, latika and jamal are children... solely because they're little children, and nobody with a conscience can refuse to care about children who go through
horrific torture and... WAIT WHAT??? that's right, this film centres around the torturing of children, the prostitution of children, the emotional suffering of children, you get the point, now let me explain why this is a problem, THIS IS WIDELY ACCEPTED AS ONE OF THE BEST FEEL-GOOD MOVIES OF 2008, doesn't the physical/sexual/emotional abuse of children just make any sane person feel all warm and fuzzy inside? I SINCERELY HOPE NOT! jamal and saleem had a terrible childhood which is revealed through flashbacks as terrible
as the things they depict, it is from these flashbacks that jamal knows all the answers to
the questions presented in an indian "who wants to be a millionaire" (which is impossble to
cheat in, because only the host knows the questions/answers, and every variation of the show
only uses LANDLINES to prevent connection failure, which renders two major plot points in the film completely invalid), but the most gaping plot holes arise when two of these flashbacks DO NOT EVEN GIVE JAMAL THE ANSWER, OR THE CHANCE FOR JAMAL TO FIGURE OUT THE
ANSWER!!!

oh, and they don't show jamal completing the general knowledge questions REQUIRED to appear
on every variation of the show, which he would have failed at, because he is unaware that
ghandi is on every piece of indian currency (even though he clearly earns indian money
throughout the movie), if he doesn't know that, how much more does he not know? this alone
renders the ENTIRE PLOT invalid...

jamal went on the show because latika loves the show, and he loves latika, which is oh so
IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE BECAUSE JAMAL AND LATIKA HAVE NO CHEMISTRY, THEY HAVE NO COMMON
INTERESTS, THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE AN IN-DEPTH CONVERSATION IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE, this is what i meant when i said 'no logical motivation' jamal and latika are in love solely because the plot needs them to be, and dear god does it show.

oh, and then there's the ending, now, all throughout the movie, there is a consistent theme: money is evil, so what happens... HE WINS!!! if the movie had any logical messages he would have lost, and realised, alongside the audience, that money isn't everything, but no...

let me leave you with this: slumdog millionaire won eight oscars.… Expand

this is the movie which deserve two awards to sy the least.THE MOST OVERRATED MOVIE & THE BEST FEEL-GOOD MOVIE TO THE WEST.all the director does at his best is that to portray India as a big slum.all the shady characters are Indians and the occassional foriegn tourists are the only messiahs.very cool indeed.I think it is well hatched plot by the academy to give awards to two indians who worked with the film so that they can be sure it will grab the attention of India.Rahman has given to Indians sweeter melodies than jai ho to the Indians.Its a very poor attempt to showcase the poverty of India so that the westerners can feel good about themselves.same can be said abt the Booker Prize given to Aravind Adiga.Pure, unadultrated crap.… Expand

I really to stop watching this movie right at the beginning. Just 5 minutes into the movie, I knew it was going to be a really bad cliche movie and it was. It was an insult to see this movie to have so much acclaim and the credits of this movie cut the cake to how shitty this movie it was. The only thing that this movie did for me was to feel bad for the country of India but that's because they depict so badly in this movie.… Expand

i was looking forward to seeing this because everyone i know enjoyed it, but i thought it was boring, drab, and over-rated. Needs to recolor some of the subtitles, white text on a yellow background (i believe it was a car) is damn near impossible to read.

The story was nice, i like the concept, just didn;t do it for me as a film.

Contrived Plot

This is a overrated and unnecessarily hyped movie. I have heard lots of music so far but could not what is special in the music of the film that it got nominamted for best music, backgroung music....Most of the time the backgroung music of "Kaun banega Crorepati" has been palyed, some other time a film song "Aaj ki raaat". I believe there are far better music we already have heard in bollywood movies, even that is by A R Rahman.

Lots of other points are there which have already been discussed in this forum, I will not go for those again, but I personally not satishfied with movie. I tried a lot to like the movie but I can not.… Expand

Very mediocre. I agree with other sentiments about moviegoers jumping on the 'awards bandwagon.' There is nothing really original about this film other than the fact that it comes from India. I could not help but think that this movie was simply a combination of a couple of movies I have seen before and it was much less powerful. The film tries to juggle too many half baked messages and plot twists to be of real substance; and propped up by acting that is OK at best this film is not worth the praise it is getting.… Expand

Why this predictable, schmaltzy movie won Best Picture and is being so widely praised is beyond me. THE DARK KNIGHT, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, THE WRESTLER and WALL-E were all far better movies.

Very disappointing. I didn

Without doubt one of my all time worst experiances in the cinema - and a prime example of how seemingly intelligent critics would rather not upset the apple cart and state the facts - this film is awfull! The script is badly written, characters are totally without any depth or substance, serious themes of poverty are used as puerile plot points then thrown away as and when it doesn't serve a totally twee unbelievable romance. The acting is uniformly amatureish - none of the protaganists create any humanity beyond the writers belief you should care for them due to their sufferings - and the fact they are contrasted with one dimensional evil characters all around them. Maybe if the director wanted to make some serious points about 3rd world poverty he could of done it with more rounded characters? Some of the representations of India (police torture because you get a few questions right on a game show) are ludicrous verging on racist. Which maybe ok in a fairy tale, but then don't make a fairy tale and use serious issues as plot devices. Far from being proud of this piece of dirge (as the UK press are suggesting) British Cinema should bow it's head in shame.… Expand

A huge letdown considering all the hype! Apart from being visually impressive and having a few mildly entertaining moments, this movie is confusing at best and pointless, naive and overblown at worst. I mean, the 2 main characters that are supposed to be deeply in love never even exchange a proper sentence, and the character of Jamal Malik is as blank as a sheet of paper. Not to mention that the point of the story completely escapes me...unless the point is depicting all the worst horrors of Indian poverty just to elicit the shock and pity of the white, Western viewer comfortably seated in a cinema chair with lots popcorn in his hand. I am forced to conclude that this is one of the main reasons why this movie got so many awards- to appease social consciousness. It seems that by patching graphic scenes of poverty and violence onto a pointless, confusing plot and a set of faceless characters, we come to what is, today, considered a highly acclaimed movie.… Expand

This may be the worst movie ever made. I take that back. "From Beyond" is the worst. This one is second. Not one of the reviews I've read even mentioned the aspect of the persecution of the Muslims in a Hindu country. Where is the moral indignation at India for this racist behavior? The reviewers all mention the vibrant colors of the slums. That makes it the best film of the year? Why should we be visually assaulted watching a movie? Crap.This movie is crap.… Expand

Slums are cool. i mean, where else can you walk around covered in sh**? This movie is a feast for the overstimulated. Is someone trying to trumpet down the distinction between films and music videos for good? I do like the juxtaposition of game show to 'hard knocks school of life', yet this theme is no longer that fresh.

This is a joke.

The point of the movie is boring. Its 2009 and Im still watching movies about humans trudging around on earth. At this point in time, the viewer and critic MUST take into consideration, the TIME in which we live in, I am not interested in plots, even with high quality, that involve feeble comparisons between rich and poor, and young modesty for the rules and grandiose randomness primitive civilization sometimes presents. I crave something innovative, constructive, and complex; in complexity simplicity can be established, at any point, for a common viewer, in 2009 i expect more from all entertainment genres. I am not a troglodyte.… Expand

This movie has exaggerated both the poverty of Indian people and the attitude of the Indians. All the WORST POSSIBLE incidents that could happen to a human being is being depicted as happening to this SOLE PERSON, which can't be REALISTIC. I am at the same time not denying about the pathetic conditions of people living in the slums. But all the worst things occuring to a single person, is VERY UNLIKELY. The worst part of the movie is the attitude of the host of show "Who wants to be a millionaire". Being an Indian, I have never seen any person humiliating any other person in a PUBLIC SHOW. If something like this happens, the public will never tolerate these kind of humiliation on a show that is broadcast nationally. So this movie is a hype depicting all the bad side of the Indian culture and people. So I did not enjoy watching this movie.… Expand

I find the movie extremely offensive and racist. It shows Indian culture as bankrupt and evil. There isn't a single good Indian person in that movie. What are people happy about? Do you guys really believe India is such a morally bankrupt society? How come the west likes to see only movies that show abject poverty and misery? This movie is made by a westener for a western audience so that they can feel good about themselves. Pathetic!… Expand

Extremely overrated. Poor acting.An annoying cacophony atop a predictable structure.I want those 2 hours of my life back.

One of the Worst films that i have watched in the past 5 years. It was trying to be funny at some points without even being close to funny. I never felt for any of the characters. If they both would have gotten shot and died i would have been happy cause the movie would of ended.

Highly disappointing. Many aspects of this movie are great but Boyle's tendency to keep a tucky romantic love story in the center of the movie with awfully ridiculous dialogues simply ruins the movie. I choose 3 to counteract the high scores this movie gets.

Why is everyone so eager to jump on this bandwagon? If not for the unbelievable shower of awards, this movie would have slipped into deserved obscurity. Manipulative...flashy...provides a caffeine-buzz but no real nourishment....exciting to viewers who may just be easily pleased....I was annoyed and angered by the way the filmmakers expected viewers to respond to this horror-fairy tale....the more sensitive viewer would not be dancing in the aisles, and those who expect more from their art and entertainment would most likely not be inspired.… Expand

I cannot understand all this weird appraisal noise about this underrate piece of movie. It

Stupid. boring. i got the dvd and was waiting and waiting for the movie to live up to all the Oscars it won and it never happened.i fast forwarded through half of it because it was so damn boring. and the part with him not caring if he won the money seemed totally unrealistic. horrible.although there were a few redeeming parts such as the nail biting ending.

I'd sure like to talk further to Sylvia V who gave the film a 2. Finally someone else who recognizes how Western audiences delude themselves into a sense of moral superiority by vicariously experiencing the struggles of others from the safety and comfort of their arm chair. No wonder North Americans are so completely lacking in substance. They confuse the images of personal struggle and survival and in this film or the personal sacrifice of people like "Schindler" or with "Erin Brockovich" with themselves and delude themselves with the illusion of moral superiority by association. Consequently, when the chips are down, Americans simply assume their own superiority without ever having risked or sacrificed anything of real substance themselves. This is an OK movie but it is so utterly implausable it's little more than fluff. I think it's appeal is in the vicarious experience and idiotically tidy plot.… Expand

I was completely let down by this movie. I just don't see what all the hype was about. Very hard to follow but simply a series of segments of his life on how he knew the answers. SO WHAT? Only became interesting in the last 15 minutes and by then I was so pissed off at wasting my time watching it, I lost all confidence in movie reviewers. Terrible movie. Don't waste your time.

I was waiting for them to get gunned down by the gang at the end, but when they didn't, and especially after the credit sequence, I decided that this is one of the most overrated films ever.

One of the most overrated films of the year in addition to The wrestler, Rachel getting married,the visitor,che or Frost/Nixon. Slumdog millonaire is a bad film and a bored bored bored film.

This movie has plenty of facile emotional manipulation. There's a lot of poverty in the world, in case you didn't know it. Mean authority figures, too. Beware foreign films such as this one which is the latest darling among film critics!

I have seen a lot better movies about conditions in the Third World. Entertaining but contrived with some ridiculous twists.

I just happened to see the movie before the Academy Awards results are declared. I can offer two observations on the movie notwithstanding the "ga-ga" attitude of the western media. 1. The movie is nothing, but a standard documentary that describes only the darker, poorer aspect of India. Everybody in India and in the Third World ,seems to be a fraud from the police constable, a brother, and upto the top entreupreneur - the man who is hosting the TV show(Played by Anil Kapoor). Probably that is what the West would like to see in India;and that is what Danny Boyle has seen. Which is why, the movie is such a runaway hit in the West. 2. The Movie is an abashed depiction of the Racist attitude of the white man and the West. Even after getting striped off all the parts of a Mercedes, the White tourist still shows benevolence by offering a $100 bill to the prime suspect and mutters - "look what we can do" or something to that effect. That it is extremely undigestible; I could well feel it, as I have traveled extensively in the Western world. I hope to get some comments on that. h… Expand