Slumdog Millionaire – DVD Review

By June L. Apr 6, 2009, 14:45 GMT

Jamal Malik (Patel), an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just 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, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so ...more

What else good can be said about Slumdog Millionaire that has not already been written or reported a number of times? 

This year’s Best Film winner at the Academy Awards is many things, with diverse emotions and scenes of life that range from frighteningly horrible to incredibly sweet, all which have an incredible impact on the viewer. 

If you haven’t seen it, you should, and if you have seen it, now it is available to own on DVD and Blu-ray and to watch again and again.

A good friend of mine was visiting India at the time of the Academy Awards presentations, and she was impressed by the overwhelming joy and sense of pride that people expressed about this film.  She says it was a privilege to share in their excitement and celebration, a party that seemed to include the entire country as its film received the prestigious award. 

Happiness and good things are so rare in this world, and what a treasure of a memory my friend will have from experiencing this in the actual place.

Slumdog Millionaire is about a young man from the poorest part of Mumbai, who becomes a contestant on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and after reaching an unbelievable level of correct answers, is taken away by the police and accused of cheating. 

As the police use harsh methods to try and make Jamal (Dev Patel) confess to cheating, he stands fast to his story that he knows the answers.  We then see in flashbacks, how the harsh, colorful, brutal life of Jamal taught him various things, many of them the answers to the questions asked on the show. 

As he tells his story, one cannot help but think of the similarities to the hopelessly battered children in Dickens’s novels.  We watch Jamal, Salim and Latika become orphans and homeless because of religious persecution, and fall into the clutches of a cruel Fagin-esque criminal boss. 

It is painful, and yet, their spirits, especially Jamal’s are indomitable, and then he loses Latika for the first time.  He has to keep on, and he and his brother begin a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn adventure using every means possible to make money, whether it is giving tours at the Taj Mahal as an uncompleted five star hotel, to any other scheme that comes their way. 

The viewer watches as the brothers mature and while Salim is changed by their hard life, Jamal’s impetus is always to find and reunite with Latika.

Slumdog Millionaire is presented on single disc, widescreen format.  What I watched was a screener disc, but it did have special features.  There are two film commentaries, one with Director Danny Boyle and actor Dev Patel, and the other with Producer Christian Colson and Writer Simon Beaufoy. 

There are deleted scenes from the film.  There is also a featurette “Slumdog Dreams:  The Making of Slumdog Millionaire with Danny Boyle.  Part the way through this featurette it stopped and gave the title saying part 1. 

I was unable to locate and play a part 2, so I am not certain if this is a mistake or someone joking around.  The final special is a music video “Slumdog Cutdown.”

Slumdog Millionaire is a unique and amazing film to watch, and belongs in everyone’s DVD collection.

Slumdog Millionaire is now available at Amazon. It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a June 1st release. Visit the DVD database for more information.