Review of Slumdog Millionaire (2008) by Erin — 16 Jun 2009

This was one of my favorite movies of all time. It showed you just how violent and poverty-stricken the slums of India are, it showed you the fierce hatred between Hindus and Muslims, it even showed you the lives of children living in India.

Apart from nerve-tingling violence (a boy getting his eyes cut out, a girl getting a knife slashed across her face, a young boy killing a man with a revolver, a young boy getting beaten harshly by a guard, people setting a man on fire, a boy getting electrocuted) there was a very strong and great message to this movie.

There was also slight sexual refrences, but they were very mild (a boy leading a girl into a room, girls dancing scandaly, boys walking through an alley of prostitutes, but not giving them money, although they walk in on a couple but it does not show anything).

I thought the acting in it was spectacular. The children playing young Jamal, Salim, and Latika were outstanding, convincing you they truly lived in the slums of India, as well as the older versions convincing you their lives had slowly panned out and changed them into very different people by a sequence of events.

There was slight cussing as well (the b-word, d-word, and s-word said only a couple times). But the themes of the movie, you could not help but feel heartbroken at how the children were living in such a poor, violent situation.

Being beaten for hardly no reason, having to search through trash heaps, live in such a polluted area...it was incredibly heart-wrenching. There are a few disturbing events, such as a boy jumping into a waste mound, a boy getting his eyes scooped out with acid, a girl dressed up as a hindu god with several disgusting piercings, a boy getting hot chili peppers stuck down his pants, and many others.

But apart from the violence and slight sexual references this movie taught me how truly lucky I am to live in such a free country, where people can't take me away to try to force me into gangs to shoot people, or to work as a prostitute.

It also showed that just from your experiences, even if you are a "slumdog" from India, if you have traveled places or learned things from your experiences, you can know just as much as a rich gameshow host.