Slumming with Slumdog Millionaire on DVD by Reg Seeton
After taking Hollywood by storm when it almost found its way to DVD instead of theaters, Slumdog Millionaire became the darling of the 2009 Academy Awards. The story of an Indian boy born into poverty who falls in love, spends his youth searching for the girl of his dreams after being separated, and eventually winds up in her arms years later when he gets the opportunity to appear on India's version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" had all of the right ingredients to be a hit. Adapted from the novel "Q&A" by Indian author Vikas Swarup, Slumdog Millionaire counters the glorified notions of crime as entertainment by giving moviegoers hope that nice guys don't always finish last. It's a story with one clear objective, with a character on a mission that rises above not only the class structure he's born into, religious turmoil, criminal temptation, and the only person he can rely on, his brother, who turns to the dark side of Mumbai as a hired gun for cash.
Aside from the gold and glory Slumdog received at the Oscars, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the non-linear tale is how director Danny Boyle and crew were able to get what they needed in a country bubbling over with people. Although most sequences are stunning and gorgeous representations of day-to-day life on the streets of Mumbai, much of the action within Slumdog had to have been simply random acts of life. Sure, Bollywood is a booming movie industry, but like the brother of lead character Jamal (Dev Patel), Salim (Madhur Mittal), says, he'll never find the girl he loves in a city of 90 million people. Imagine trying to shoot a film there. Luckily a lot of these types of wonders are answered in the commentary track with director Danny Boyle, actor Dev Patel, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, and producer Christian Colson who all share secrets of working on location, the production challenges in India and how they all had an affect on the writing of the movie. If you're looking for a grounded and more down-to-Earth commentary with substance, the track easily matches the power of the film and production value.
Although it was easy to get caught up in the mounting hype for Slumdog Millionaire leading up to the Oscars, when you step back and take an objective view, it's a fairly simple love story set within a complex world of cause-and-effect wrapped in a fractured flashback type structure. Although I haven't kept pace with the crossover movies from India, Slumdog reminded me a lot of the tonal simplicity of the 2001 Indian film, Monsoon Wedding, in its forbidden love qualities. While Monsoon Wedding dealt with forbidden love within a story of arranged marriage, Slumdog saw its characters separated by life, the years in between growing into adulthood, and whether fate and their mature transformations had become the family that would keep them apart forever. But what worked so well for Slumdog Millionaire was its structure of storytelling in the lead character Jamal being interrogated by police at the outset of the story under charges that he cheated to get one question away from winning the top payday of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
As the police go through each question of the show on video, prompting Jamal to detail exactly how he knew the answers to each of the questions, the story of Slumdog Millionaire begins to unfold. We soon see Jamal's childhood life on the streets of Mumbai with his brother, Salim, and how a devious ring of child traffickers ends up controlling their lives after it snatches them up. It's in this ring that Jamal meets the love of his life, Latika (Freida Pinto), who becomes the pot of gold at the end of Slumdog Millionaire's rainbow. Interestingly, Slumdog creates a symbolic World War II Holocaust atmosphere, as Salim witnesses the brutality of his captors who, in one scene, permanently blind a child on a table where even more horrific bodily alterations have taken place. And when the children are shipped off on trains to the busy streets to beg for money, it's an unmistakable comparison to the concentration camps of WWII, which works impressively effective for the story. When Jamal, Salim and Latika make a break to escape their captors, the young girl gets left behind and the real story of Slumdog Millionaire begins.
So, is Slumdog Millionaire perfect? Of course not; no movie is perfect. The bones I have to pick with Slumdog are mainly the elements and differences of what would have made a two-hour movie a three-hour story that people wouldn't have the attention span to sit through. And since the movie cleaned up at the Oscars, you can't really say the right choices weren't made. But what I did find after my initial reaction of "Wow, that was great," is that a few hours later I began to question Jamal's journey and the end result of the character. In many ways Jamal is too smart without a lot of explanation other than he learned everything from life. However, the persona, intellect, and articulation of Jamal, the young man on the game show, is a lot more akin to someone who was born into privilege and groomed for an Ivy League college than someone who ate garbage for most of his life to survive. We do see Jamal and Salim in school for a quick period of time but there's something about Jamal that doesn't feel quite as authentic as he should be. Also, the transition of Salim into a darker character that can only turn to a life of crime comes fairly quick despite the earlier seeds of foreshadow. There are other elements of story and characters that I've been questioning, but Slumdog does what it needs to do to strike the right emotional notes in its audience.
The DVD
Aside from the commentary mentioned above, the Slumdog Millionaire disc covers the necessary bases that will give fans greater insight into the film and the production. As a DVD, the release will certainly satisfy lovers of the film in terms of the additional running time of extras since there's over an hour of special feature entertainment value. Most of that, however, is broken down into two features in a two-part 24 minute behind-the-scenes segment called "Slumdog Dreams: The Making of Slumdog Millionaire" and over a half-hour's worth of deleted scenes. plus a fun music video reel set to the film's lively and culturally energetic song, "Jai Ho."
The biggest bangs for your Slumdog entertainment buck come from the commentary and the "Slumdog Dreams" featurette, which breaks the film's behind-the-scenes production down into two-parts, as Danny Boyle chronicles working with the young actors in the early part of the story - including the now well-known makeshift toilet scene - while Slumdog actors talk about their experiences and feeling about the movie and how the crew feels about working with Danny Boyle and overcoming the many challenges in India and beyond to bring the film to life. Given the scope and stunning cinematography of the film, "Slumdog Dreams" is a must watch in order to truly appreciate what it took to pull off such an ambitious project. And for any budding filmmaker looking to for a career as a director, it's evident in the featurette that you have to truly believe in the story and have a passion for what you do to achieve great things.
When it comes to deleted scenes, I've always been on the fence. When DVDs first hit the market, deleted scenes felt like something special, and they were, and they still are to large degree. But over time a lot feel like random filler that reviewers have organically deemed to be a necessary requirement even thought many cuts from the floor don't offer much to offer in the way of connectivity or relevance. As for the 30-minutes-plus footage that was cut from Slumdog, it speaks to exactly what I was saying above about back-story justification for the characters that would have made Slumdog longer than people could tolerate. In this case - and it doesn't happen quite that often anymore on DVD - the deleted scenes give Slumdog richer, more relevant substance that explains a lot. Even though you'll see the standard DVD review template response from 90% of reviewers that say the cuts were justified because the film was great, it's not that simple. Like I said, Slumdog was indeed great but perfect.
So what can be said about Slumdog Millionaire that hasn't already been regurgitated thousands of times in the same fashion on the web? Not much, it's a great movie. As for the DVD release, Slumdog covers the right bases in order to shed light on how such a logistically challenging movie was not only made but also why it cleaned up at the Oscars. With only a one production segment, a commentary, deleted scenes, and a music montage, there's no doubt we'll see a larger Slumdog Millionaire release at some point down the road since it won Best Picture. Until then fans will be most certainly happy to slum along with Danny Boyle's hit on DVD.
Release Date: 3/31/2009 Length: 121 mins Features:
- Making of Slumgod Millionaire Featurette with Golden Globe -winning Director Danny Boyle
- 12 Deleted Scenes
- Audio Commentary with Director Danny Boyle and Actor Dev Patel
- Music video montage
i can't explain my feeling about "Slumdog Millionaire" it's just perfect ,it's dazzle me in each event ,action,emotion and everything in it was just perfect ..this movie was marvel and this marvel can not iterated ever again because it's the best of the best...
After taking Hollywood by storm when it almost found its way to DVD instead of theaters, Slumdog Millionaire became the darling of the 2009 Academy Awards. The story of an Indian boy born into poverty who falls in love, spends his youth searching for the girl of his dreams after being separated, and eventually winds up in her arms years later when he gets the opportunity to appear on India's version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" had all of the right ingredients to be a hit. Adapted from the novel "Q&A" by Indian author Vikas Swarup, Slumdog Millionaire counters the glorified notions of crime as entertainment by giving moviegoers hope that nice guys don't always finish last. It's a story with one clear objective, with a character on a mission that rises above not only the class structure he's born into, religious turmoil, criminal temptation, and the only person he can rely on, his brother, who turns to the dark side of Mumbai as a hired gun for cash.
Although it was easy to get caught up in the mounting hype for Slumdog Millionaire leading up to the Oscars, when you step back and take an objective view, it's a fairly simple love story set within a complex world of cause-and-effect wrapped in a fractured flashback type structure. Although I haven't kept pace with the crossover movies from India, Slumdog reminded me a lot of the tonal simplicity of the 2001 Indian film, Monsoon Wedding, in its forbidden love qualities. While Monsoon Wedding dealt with forbidden love within a story of arranged marriage, Slumdog saw its characters separated by life, the years in between growing into adulthood, and whether fate and their mature transformations had become the family that would keep them apart forever. But what worked so well for Slumdog Millionaire was its structure of storytelling in the lead character Jamal being interrogated by police at the outset of the story under charges that he cheated to get one question away from winning the top payday of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
So, is Slumdog Millionaire perfect? Of course not; no movie is perfect. The bones I have to pick with Slumdog are mainly the elements and differences of what would have made a two-hour movie a three-hour story that people wouldn't have the attention span to sit through. And since the movie cleaned up at the Oscars, you can't really say the right choices weren't made. But what I did find after my initial reaction of "Wow, that was great," is that a few hours later I began to question Jamal's journey and the end result of the character. In many ways Jamal is too smart without a lot of explanation other than he learned everything from life. However, the persona, intellect, and articulation of Jamal, the young man on the game show, is a lot more akin to someone who was born into privilege and groomed for an Ivy League college than someone who ate garbage for most of his life to survive. We do see Jamal and Salim in school for a quick period of time but there's something about Jamal that doesn't feel quite as authentic as he should be. Also, the transition of Salim into a darker character that can only turn to a life of crime comes fairly quick despite the earlier seeds of foreshadow. There are other elements of story and characters that I've been questioning, but Slumdog does what it needs to do to strike the right emotional notes in its audience.
The biggest bangs for your Slumdog entertainment buck come from the commentary and the "Slumdog Dreams" featurette, which breaks the film's behind-the-scenes production down into two-parts, as Danny Boyle chronicles working with the young actors in the early part of the story - including the now well-known makeshift toilet scene - while Slumdog actors talk about their experiences and feeling about the movie and how the crew feels about working with Danny Boyle and overcoming the many challenges in India and beyond to bring the film to life. Given the scope and stunning cinematography of the film, "Slumdog Dreams" is a must watch in order to truly appreciate what it took to pull off such an ambitious project. And for any budding filmmaker looking to for a career as a director, it's evident in the featurette that you have to truly believe in the story and have a passion for what you do to achieve great things.
So what can be said about Slumdog Millionaire that hasn't already been regurgitated thousands of times in the same fashion on the web? Not much, it's a great movie. As for the DVD release, Slumdog covers the right bases in order to shed light on how such a logistically challenging movie was not only made but also why it cleaned up at the Oscars. With only a one production segment, a commentary, deleted scenes, and a music montage, there's no doubt we'll see a larger Slumdog Millionaire release at some point down the road since it won Best Picture. Until then fans will be most certainly happy to slum along with Danny Boyle's hit on DVD.