Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Who wants to be a millionaire? Especially with belts tightening worldwide, a better question might be, who doesn't? Danny Boyle's new film Slumdog Millionaire, a sensation on the film festival circuit, provides a surprising answer to that question. Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, finds himself just one question away from the top prize of 20 million rupees on the Indian edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire but his success is in question: how could a hardly educated "slumdog" be a quiz-show winner? And why does he continue to answer questions when he could walk away with massive sums?

As with his film Millions, Boyle's latest deals with an underprivileged youth suddenly granted surprising fortune. In this case, the lucky beneficiary is "slumdog" Jamal, whose unlikely ascent unfolds in a series of quiz-show answers paired with interrogation-sparked chronological flashbacks that, if true, explain how Jamal gained the knowledge. Three actors play Jamal at various ages: Dev Patel (of BBC America's teen sensation Skins) as the 18-year-old Jamal, Tanay Hemant Chheda as the pubescent Jamal, and Ayush Mahesh Khedekar as seven-year old Jamal (three actors likewise play Jamal's brother Salim).

Adapted by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty) from Vikas Swarup's novel Q&A, the Dickensian Slumdog Millionaire exhibits the vibrancy and poverty of Mumbai.

Irfan Khan and Anil Kapoor give wonderfully sly performances as the two adults who vie with him. As it wears on and enters into crime drama territory, Slumdog Millionaire becomes a bit less compelling and a bit more melodramatic, but it's a crowd-pleasing adventure with substantial humor and an overarching love story.