Slumdog Millionaire

Ladies and gentleman, behold … the year’s most overrated movie. Danny Boyle directs this curio about a young man on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Dev Patel plays Jamal, who we see on the game show and in flashbacks that show us how he can be competitive with answers to tough questions posed by the host. We also see him getting interrogated by authorities who think he is cheating. We also get an unaffecting romance between Patel and a girl he befriends as a child. The game show framing device is silly and melodramatic, and the flashbacks just aren’t all that involving. What keeps the film semi-worthwhile is Patel’s decent lead performance and Boyle’s flair for visuals, especially in a film-ending dance sequence. But the payoffs aren’t all that great, and the movie doesn’t engage on any major level. It looks good, but it doesn’t necessarily feel good.