"Why did you decide to go to the show?" "Because I thought she may be watching"
Love has been portrayed in many
different forms by directors and story-writers through the decades, but this is a very original look at the most wonderful feeling of them all. From the British director comes a heart-touching action-romance movie, which you just cannot ignore. Set in the largest and busiest city of Mumbai, India this movie is based on the book Q & A by
Vikas Swarup. This movie is the story of a boy, Jamal, who is born a slumdog, who lived in one of the famous slums of Bombay with his mother and elder brother. In his young age, he does everything from swimming through a sea of human excrement to get an autograph of his favourite superstar, to run afoul of the Mumbai Police, that an everyday slumdog does. His life is as normal as it could be, being forced to school by his elders to read an English story-book called 'The Three Musketeers', until Hindu-Muslim riots hit their peaceful slum, forcing him and his brother to escape, separated from their mother. It is then that they first meet Latika, their potential third
Musketeer. They start living in the streets when they are taken under the wing of a strange man who trains children to become beggars for his own profit. After finding out the horrific truth about this man, Jamal and his brother bolt along with Latika, only Latika is left behind. They start a life of thievery to look after themselves stealing expensive shoes from the front of the Taj Mahal to sell them at high prices. They return to Bombay, when it becomes clear that it is not their old Bombay, but a new and terrifying Mumbai that they have arrived in. It is revealed that all this time Jamal had not forgotten Latika. He searches for her and finds her in a brothel being trained to dance. It is there that they meet the man who had made beggars out of them. Here Saleem reveals his gun, showing his dark side, killing the man, to help Latika escape. It later becomes clear that his intentions with Latika were entirely different, he forces Jamal to leave and closes the door on him, with Latika in his arm. Betrayed, Jamal is forced to forget about Latika. He becomes a chaiwala in a call-center. He finds out about his brother, he was now working for a don, bound under him to kill and murder. His brother had changed. Jamal asks Saleem about Latika."She is gone." One day, following his brother, he reaches the hideout of the don, where he finds Latika. Latika is astonished to see Jamal, but she only asks him to leave, saying that things have changed and they could not be together any more. But Jamal says that he would be in the station everyday at a particular time, waiting for her. Then one day she comes. Latika, looking stunningly beautiful standing out in the crowd. Jamal, overjoyed, cries her name. She looks at her and smiles. Then, in true Bollywood style, she is abducted by Saleem, in front of Jamal's very eyes. Saleem makes it very clear that Jamal is not to follow. This is the story till now. But the director shows these parts as flashbacks. Jamal narrates all these to a police officer, while being interrogated about how he could possibly know the answers to the questions of the game show "Who wants to be a Millionare" when doctors and lawyers couldn't. The truth was that luckily all the questions were somehow related to Jamal's life in one way or the other. Just before the last question, the host hands him to the police. The officer is satisfied by Jamal's story, letting him play the rest of the game the next day. This marks the climax. Saleem realises his mistake and lets Latika go meet his brother, giving her his phone, running a risk of getting himself killed by the don. Latika goes out to meet Jamal only to be met by a traffic jam, as the whole city, the whole country has stopped to see Jamal be the first winner if the price money in the most popular game show. Meanwhile, Saleem is found by the don to have betrayed him, and is killed, only after killing the don. The last question is that who is the third musketeer. Jamal has no idea. He calls his brother, only to hear Latika picking up. Latika does not know the answer, but wishes luck to Jamal. There you have it, the third Musketeer. Jamal guesses. He gets it right. Then he meets Laika in the station. "Kiss me" says Latika. They kiss. The end.