“Today is the biggest day in Jamal Malik’s life.
A penniless, eighteen year old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, he’s one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” But when the show breaks for the night, suddenly, he is arrested for cheating. After all, how could an uneducated street kid possibly know so much? Determined to get to the bottom of Jamal’s story, the jaded Police Inspector spends the night probing Jamal’s incredible past, from his riveting tales of the slums where he and his brother Salim survived by their wits to his hair-raising encounters with his local gangs to his heartbreak over Latika, the unforgettable girl he loved and lost.
Each chapter of Jamal’s increasingly layered story reveal where he learned the answers to the show’s seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show?
When the next day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out…”[1]
This movie does a great job of showing the viewer what life is like in India for those in the slums. It gives a gruesome, but realistic view of what poverty in India is like. Jamal is being investigated and each question he knows the answer to on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” goes back to things he experienced as a child in the slums. It was very creative the way these two were woven together. I was not aware that life could be so hard for people in the slums of India and this movie shed light on the hardships impoverished people face, especially in the slums of India. This movie has been criticized for not being realistic enough; there is no way that a boy from the slums would get on this show. However, I feel that the movie does point this fact out, that Jamal is very lucky. Just the fact that Jamal knew certain answers because they happened to be connected with his past is lucky, but the movie connects this with fate. Even throughout the movie he was very lucky in other ways as well, he seemed to just be in the right place at the right time at some times.
******************Warning: Spoilers*************************
This movie shows such sad details about life in the slums not many people will leave the theater with a happy feeling, even though the ending is very happy. Jamal’s whole reason for going on the show is to find his love Latika. Through a series of events they find each other and in the end everyone in the cast dances an Indian dance. Throughout this movie Jamal and Salim find people that are willing to help them.
At one point Jamal shows Americans the real India and a cop finds him starts to beat him. He tells the Americans, “You wanted to see the real India, well here it is.” The Americans make the cop stop and give Jamal money and tell him that that is really American help. It would be great if all Americans would stop and help those who are homeless all around them and be so considerate to those who are living in poverty all over the world and more Americans should stop worrying about themselves and help others.
[1] http://www.foxsearchlight.com/slumdogmillionaire/
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