Unanswered questions about Slumdog

There had always been so much curiosity about

Slumdog Millionaire

— way before Oscar night and especially after it won Best Picture. However, I purposely delayed reviewing this film so that I don’t raise expectations or be a spoilsport to those who had just seen it and are still at the peak of gushing over it. And so here is another review of

Slumdog Millionaire:

Directed by Danny Boyle, who had never really done other important films in the past — unless you consider Trainspotting truly significant — the story of this movie is set in Mumbai in India. A native, Jamal Malik (played by Dev Patel), joins his country’s edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and being of humble origins (the lowest in India) the host of the show (portrayed by Bollywood popular actor Anil Kapoor) doubts his winning streak and has him interrogated by the cops who force him to admit that he cheated.

Jamal denies this, of course, and in order to defend himself he cites instances in his life that would prove that he really knew the answers and we go back to his childhood. In the slums, he and his older brother Salim become street-smart because that is the only way to survive given their environment. They get even tougher when their mother is killed during a religious clash and they are left on their own. At this point, an orphaned girl, Latika, joins them and she becomes the love of Jamal’s life.

Recruited by a syndicate that uses kids to beg for alms, they learn how to fight back and after escaping this group that wouldn’t think twice about maiming them (to make them look more pitiful), they begin to fend for themselves — except for Latika who is left behind. In time, even Jamal and Salim get separated and start separate lives. Jamal straightens out his — until he lands as a contestant in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

The setting of Slumdog Millionaire could have been in Manila — in any squatter colony (oh, there’s plenty here!). The situations are very Pinoy, including the syndicate group that uses children to beg in the streets.

Sigh, it’s one movie we could have done here in the Philippines. Even now The Philippine Star columnist Joey de Leon pointed that out in his Kumentirador segment in our Startalk program last Saturday. However, I am not losing hope that we will be able to do our own Slumdog Millionaire in time — probably even better than that because it is not exactly a perfect movie.

The whole of Slumdog Millionaire is designed to keep viewers at the edge of their seats. It has a lot of powerful and suspenseful moments that play with our emotions and these keep us forever involved with the film.

While the storytelling keeps us glued to what is happening in the movie, you somehow see the hand manipulating the whole thing — like everything is calculated. The most outstanding element of this film is actually the editing — everything is so precise: It makes us worry about Jamal when the bad guys are after him and Salim and Latika — and even when he has trouble answering the question in the end.

But for all that brilliant editing, I still can’t find the answers to some of the questions that formed in my head while watching Slumdog Millionaire:

Why didn’t Jamal file a police brutality case against the cops who tortured him during the interrogation? What they did to him was unforgivable — electric shock and all.

What business did the show host have in having Jamal arrested and tortured? Maybe if he were also the producer (which wasn’t exactly pointed out in the film) I would have understood.

Why did the gang lord have to go through the trouble of changing headquarters just to keep Latika away from Jamal? Jamal is powerless to begin with against all those bodyguards. And while Latika is lovely (played as an adult by the beautiful Frieda Pinto), she is not exactly an Aishwarya Rai. So why endanger his turf because of one woman when he can have other better-looking women in his harem?

In spite of all those unanswered questions, however, Slumdog Millionaire is still one of this year’s must-see movies. It is an excellent film that was done with a lot of effort (although, of course, you sometimes see and feel it).

Unfortunately, there was a lot of hype to it and expectations were high. Some who expected too much were disappointed, but nobody can deny that it is one of the year’s best. It has a great and skillfully-written script, inspired direction, some good performances (I didn’t think Dev Patel was all that outstanding) and the best editing ever. But for Slumdog Millionaire to win over The Reader? I think giving it the Oscar Best Picture prize was hysterical.