Really, I am an enormous Danny Boyle fan but his most acclaimed movie, which is this one, is one I consider to be one of his weakest and is only one that still works out because of its originally.
Danny Boyle is one of the most versatile directors out there. He can do a movie in basically every genre and turn it into something totally unique. This movie however doesn't really fit into one genre. Is it a drama? Is it a crime movie? Is it a romance? It was a bit of all really, which in my opinion was a bit too much for the movie to handle.
The idea of the movie itself is good but the approach and execution of it was often slightly lacking. I just didn't always bought into its concept and the movie always gave me a feeling it could had done so much more with its with its main concept, also to make the movie a bit more credible and interesting at times.
The movie was trying to do too much different stuff in my opinion. The storytelling techniques and the story lines themselves let this 2 hour long movie feel like a 3 hour long one.
And I just don't understand some things about this movie. Why India? Why this main character? And why oh why would a TV program ever literally torture a contestant, just because he happens to know the right answers and why don't they want him to win? As this movie shows, they got more viewers than ever before when he was on and there are over 1.5 billion people living in India, so surely it must had earned them a lot of money and given them a lot of free press.
But clearly, this is not a bad movie. I still liked it more than I didn't, which was mostly due to it that this is simply one original and simply a truly one of a kind movie. You can't really compare this movie to anything else, since it's simply at all times doing its own thing, with its visual style and storytelling.
I believe that it's actually foremost its visual style that still makes this a truly good watch. It's a fast going movie, which in my opinion goes a bit at the expense of the drama and character developments at times but it does add to the movie its overall style. It strengthens its visual style and lets its dynamic camera-work, work out even better.
I also really liked Dev Patel as the main lead. Perhaps he is the most underrated thing about this movie, since I feel he didn't got enough recognition for it at the time.
So it's definitely a good and also original watch but still far from a great movie in my book.
7/10
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