When a young seven-year old Jamal trapped in a Mumbai outhouse, dives into a pool of piss and shit to escape and trudges through the cesspool and a mob of people to get an autograph of the most famous actor in the world, I knew this was a Danny Boyle movie. In the 1996 film, Trainspotting, were introduced to both Ewan MacGregor and Boyle’s wild style of directing (cineastes will know from 1994′s Shallow Grave) when MacGregor’s Renton went diving into a bottomless toilet to retrieve two suppositories that had fallen out of his ass. When you want attention, you go back to your bread and butter. Yet in both of those scenes we learn everything there is to know about those lead characters. Renton, will do anything for those drugs and that’s what he has to overcome. In Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal is headstrong boy, determined, once his mind is set on something.

Slumdog is a story of love and life, about two brothers on divergent paths, and the girl who would change both of their lives. Jamal and Salim are orphans, who watched their mother get murdered in front of them by religious extremists. They reside in the slums of Mumbai, India (AKA Bombay) where the only goal in life is to scrape enough to survive to the next day. At 18, Jamal (Dev Patel) finds himself in the most unlikely place, seated on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, across from host Prem Kumar (Anil Kampoor) one question away from twenty million rupees. As most people know the multiple choice spectacle gets more difficult the deeper one gets in the game. So as each question is asked, we are taken back to different points in Jamal’s life and discover how in his very experienced young life, he has come to know such obscure details. Having gone through much of the show without any problem he is held overnight at a police station for suspicion of cheating. Kumar is made a fool on television, and will not be upstaged by some slum kid. Tortured and questioned through the night, he is forced to tell the authorities how he knew the answers. But this isn’t even the real story of Slumdog Millionaire.

Through Jamal’s memories we are given glimpses into three periods of his life. At age 7, he and his brother grew up quick to survive in the slums of Mumbai. They take in a girl, Latika who is also without a family. Together as three musketeers they are taken in by a crimelord who exploits children, handicaps a camp full of them so that they can beg for money which he reaps from. Jamal and Salim escape but unfortunately leave Latika behind. As the children get older, their plans of survival become more elaborate and Salim becomes driven by greed and the power of money, whereas Jamal can only think about reuniting with his one true love, Latika (Freida Pinto). And now with millions of people watching, he only hopes that one is able to see him.

The level of melodrama may determine the level at which one enjoys the film. But one thing that cannot be disputed is the expert editing done by Chris Dickens, the real star of the Slumdog. There are three timelines woven to tell one big story, however the narrative is divided into more segments. What’s happening on the show, will Jamal escape prison, also vie for our attentive eyes on top of the big overall story. But never at any time does it feel like it’s too much, or paced too slow or fast. The success of this tapestry, this epic journey for Jamal goes back to the editing room and after seeing the film, you’ll know why it took that Oscar home too.

Yet not to be forgotten is Boyle. Slumdog feels like a culmination of his current body of work, with familiar flavors of Trainspotting and Millions (2004) wafting through. The way he championed not only this film, but the people of Mumbai, the young actors both British and Indian, especially the middle group of actors, Tanay Chheda (Middle Jamal) Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala (Middle Salim) and Tanvi Genash Lonkar (Middle Latika) who performed the darkest part of the film. Boyle, along with co-director Loveleen Tandan, gave film fans, a universally enjoyable Bollywood film, perhaps mostly because they saved the mandatory dance number to the end.

Whether or not you’ll enjoy Slumdog will depend on if you’re able to get over the fact that all of these life changing events could happen to these three people, and that nothing else matters to Jamal (even becoming a millionaire) if he can just unite with his one true love. Sounds a bit familiar to Forrest Gump, doesn’t it? And yes, that film took home the Oscar for Best Picture too. Slumdog does celebrate life in its own strange way, how objects or useless knowledge can trigger the memory of our most vivid memories, how one thing, or one person can steer the road of life for many. But by living this particular story through the Bollywood channel, helped capture the fairy tale even more. Ironically both brothers are surrounded in riches. Jamal’s though can’t fit in a wallet and neither can what you get out of watching this film.

Video: A
Slumdog Millionaire has a wonderful 1080p, AVC encoded transfer Boyle shot Slumdog in 2.35:1 and in various visual styles with different saturation levels. When he juices the color up with dramatic lighting, like when Jamal is being interrogated or in Pila Street and the Red Light District, the color explodes on the screen. Other times when he pulls back from the slums the muted mosaic of scrap metal roofs are highlighted by a handful of blue ones sprinkled about. Rich hues in the saris and the clothes that the Mumbai women are cleaning in the laundry pools stand out in the palette of muddy brown and gray that is so prominent in the cityscape. Small details like the sparkling fiber in Prem’s sport jacket and the textures seen throughout the city are easily detected in high definition. There are no glaring issues with artifacts or poor contrast, if anything the blacks could be just a bit deeper in some instances, but this is no doubt a great looking film.

Audio: A+
A high quality English / Hindi 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track carries the audio in fine fashion. It’s a lively mix that’s well balanced between strong audio effects, sharp dialogue, and upbeat music that flows in and out of the film seamlessly. In the first flashback scene to the slums, the plane rattles by and will create a small earthquake in your room. Drums pound, crowds claps in the Millionare studio, and distinctively local music all travels to the rear channels. When the characters speak, it all goes through the center channel in what is a great sounding track. Yep, Slumdog took an Oscar home for sound too. Also included is a French 5.1 Dolby Digital, and English and Spanish Subtitles for the Hard of Hearing.

Extras: B
Fans of Slumdog Millionaire will have plenty to gnaw on in the supplements. An extra music video, a brief featurette and a short film are all exclusives to the blu-ray. Unfortunately most of extras are in standard definition and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo with the exception of a trailer and music video.

Audio Commentary by Director, Danny Boyle and Actor, Dev Patel – Boyle is by far the more talkative dynamic of the two and after about 15 minutes, Boyle fills much of the time with his idol chatter pointing out a few inaccuracies, stories behind the stories, and cultural realities of Mumbai slum life. One of the scarier things that Boyle brought up was a story while looking at slum to shoot, one in particular they couldn’t film in because of how dangerous it was there. Apparently there weren’t many white people seen there and Boyle said that one person from this slum was staring at him and sneered, “George Bush.”

Audio Commentary by Producer Christian Colson and Screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy – talk about how to balance the narrative between flashing back and present day, adapting the novel. There’s some good honesty in this second commentary as by the end of the film, Beaufoy admits to how melodramatic Slumdog is and how he never thought he’d never write anything like that. Combined with the other commentary, these two audio tracks provide a bulk of supplemental information for the movie.

Deleted Scenes SD (33:51) – A dozen edits including another Millionaire question that was left on the editing floor. Some of them would have actually been good to include, while others really would have slowed the pace down. In the end it’s all for the better but it’s definitely worth the look.

From Script to Screen of “The Toilet Scene” SD (5:25) – The now infamous scene of young Jamal and his entire essence is dissected into the character’s motivation as well as a meshing of classes where a slumdog meets the biggest known actor around the world.

Manjha SD (41:03) – A black and white gritty short film in the same vein of Slumdog without the hope, the game show and the dancing. It runs a tad bit long and very dark (lit), but it’s good to see some Bollywood films with some teeth to them.

Slumdog Dreams SD (22:58) – appears to be a two-segment television show that features Boyle talking about how Simon Beaufoy’s script sold him on an idea of filming a movie about Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He points out the difference between a british slum and an Indian slum, shooting on location, culture of Mumbai, and yes, that dance number at the end.

Slumdog Cutdown HD (5:36) – This is not a traditional music video where the musicians are seen, but the Oscar-Winning Song, “Jai Ho” plays in its entirety while a montage of scenes from the film are edited together.

Bombay Liquid Dance SD (3:00) – Another unusual music video that showcase actual video and footage of Mumbai and its people.

Closing out the extras are two trailers, the Theatrical Trailer (2:07) which is in both HD and 5.1 Dolby Digital and a European Trailer (1:57) in SD and DD 2.0.

Disc Two – is just a Digital Copy Disc for the portable movie watchers.

Kicking it in the Slums – Overall Shock Value A-
How did Slumdog Millionaire take home the Academy Award for Best Film? Because Hollywood loves a good love story and a feel good story. I have to admit that I like them too, and although it wasn’t the deepest film or the one with the strongest message, I do think it succeeds in allowing us to live the fairy tale rise of the unlikeliest of champions. On blu-ray, Slumdog looks as good if not better than what I remember watching it the first time around. It looks great, it sounds terrific, and if you’ve rooted for Danny Boyle for the past ten years then you’ll find that the extras show how much joy he had making this film. It’s worth the rental or the blind purchase. Jai Ho!

Ernie Estrella