Slumdog Millionaire **

“Slumdog Millionaire” is this year’s “Crash”: a manipulative piece of slog that ups the ante of emotions by tying it to a mass “in”, in this case a game show. Sure, the fact that it is set in India gives it a catching angle and interesting gravitas – few Westerners have experienced or seen this type of life. I was primed to be whisked away and entertained. Unfortunately, the movie sets up its shorthand fairly quickly: footnoting the lead character Jamal’s life through the present-day game show questions and game stakes. The fact that the screenwriter does this instead of actually showing me a life and making me care about it because he is a person is almost insulting. And it could have been both, but it is not. Jamal is one of the most vague characters I have ever seen in my life of movie-watching. The same goes for his two compatriots. On top of this, sorry to say, this is one of those movies where kids act and say things to incredulously overpower adult villains. Yep, things like 8-year-olds saying, “You are my destiny” or wrangling out of extreme life and death situations by their wiliness. Please, don’t remind me of the last third of “The Kite Runner”! Let the eye-rolling ensue.

I wanted to connect to a great story and memorable characters, like I did watching the modern masterpiece “City of God”, which it reminded me of at the outset. Instead, director Danny Boyle (the flashy, overrated “Trainspotting”) gave me weak tethers to stock characters and, ironically, given the escalating game show, a flat story arc – and I use the term “arc” loosely. Do I understand who the characters are and why they are that way, good and bad? Nope. Do any of the characters change, affected by people and situations like in real life? Not really. Does the lead make us believe in him for any reason more than we would root for a “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” contestant? Absolutely not. Tellingly, the most interesting characters – and I was grasping for them – were the game show host and the inquisitor who interrogates Jamal about cheating. Both of them show traits of real people: they wanted something, and they showed varying shades of being a person. In fact, I left the theater not caring one iota about how the leads end up (as if its not pre-ordained at the start), but more about these other two people and what may have happened to them. Let me see what these two characters do on the next game show taping. Next contestant please.