Jamal Malik is a street kid who has landed an appearance on India's version of the hit TV game show WHO WANTS TO BE A
MILLIONAIRE?
Jamal exceeds expectations on the show, and the producers alert the police after they become suspicious of his methods. The young contestant is subsequently arrested and is interrogated at the hands of a nameless police inspector As the interrogation proceeds, Boyle tells Jamal's story through harrowing flashbacks that both show the terrible poverty of
Mumbai and help explain how he knew the
answers to the MILLIONAIRE questions.
The film starts at the end. Dev Patel’s 18-year-old Jamal is just one correct answer away from winning or daggering a 20 million rupee (£280,000) fortune on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
The terrified boy is from an orphan from the gutters of Mumbai. Jamal’s unexpected success on the show over two intense days turns the stuttering youth into a national sensation.
When the programme breaks for the night before the all-important final question, Jamal is bundled through the back door of the television studio, whisked to the nearest police station, and beaten to a pulp by corrupt and jealous cops who want to know how he cheated. This is where the film actually begins.
“What the hell can a slum boy possibly know?” barks the irritated police chief (Irrfan Khan) as a plump minion clips a pair of electric cables to Jamal’s big toes. “The answers,” spits out Patel’s bruised hero. The plucky martyr reveals how each loaded question asked by the slimy host of Millionaire unlocks a seminal childhood injury.
This being a Danny Boyle movie the precious answers are nailed to brutal scenes. They involve frantic sprints through Mumbai’s crowded markets and grisly flashbacks to medieval slums where the nine-year-old Jamal, and his slightly older psychotic brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal), spend most of their childhood fleeing the clutches of sinister pimps and hungry gangs. It’s terribly Dickensian.