"Slumdog Millionaire" may hit the big jackpot if moviegoers agree with the incredible reviews that this small independent film is getting.
It's a Hollywood meets Bollywood script, a love story shot in Mumbai that revolves around India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". It stars a British-born son of Indian parents, Dev Patel whom fans may recognize from "Skins" and a Mumbai native, former Elite model, Freida Pinto.
It's the story of Jamal who grows up homeless in the slums but somehow through his life experiences knows the answers to the questions in the mega-bucks game show. But his real motivation is not to get rich to but win the heart of Latika whom he loved and lost. It's a "bright, cheery, hard-to-resist movie" according to the New York Times.
The high-energy, ebullient film director (Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, Millions 28 Days Later, Sunshine) Danny Boyle enjoyed every second of his experience in Mumbai as well as the intertwining of the two movie epicenters of the world--Hollywood and Bollywood. " The city is in fast forward and you have to start running straight away to keep up because you're going to be flattened otherwise " Boyle says of his experience.
What's expected to be a smash-hit, was shot on a non big screen budget. Boyle says they took a film crew of about 10 and also used smaller digital cameras, "which are both incredibly flexible in terms of narrow alley ways and also you can shoot and people don't know you're filming them. They're looking for big cameras in fact we have these little hand-held ones and you can get some extraordinary results with that."
"Slumdog Millionaire" opens Nov 21 at Hillcrest Cinemas and La Jolla Village Cinemas.
