****

Keep her crying and you’ll earn triple.

The year when a film comes out interests me. For instance, in 2007 No Country for Old Men won the Best Picture Oscar, but it was not even one of the five best—according to me—movies of the year. Contrast that with 2009’s Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker. That was actually the best movie of that year. I gave both films 4 & ½ stars. While both years were very good years in film, 2009 was a very good year for very good movies. 2007 was a very good year for great movies. This film is from 2008. My Top 10 for 2008 included Get Smart. At number eight! In that light, this would be a top 4 movie, even though it only had 4 stars. Make sense?

A handcuffed Dev Patel, as the Slumdog Millionaire and Irrfan Khan as the police inspector interrogating him. © Fox Searchlight 2009.

A handcuffed Dev Patel, as the Slumdog Millionaire and Irrfan Khan as the police inspector interrogating him. © Fox Searchlight 2009.

It lost points for some of the coincidences and how it dragged at times. But it gained points for three key decisions:
1. Immediate torture and Irrfan Khan as the police inspector! I did not expect to see Jamal getting tortured to see how he cheated as part of act I of this movie. And Khan just keeps impressing me with Amazing Spider-man and to a greatest extent Life of Pi.
2. Showing Indian poverty and cruelty. Yeah, I do not really want to go into this in much detail, but: orphan in poop trying to avoid being blinded while living on the street with a drunken, rapist brother.
3. The relationship between Jamal—Dev Patel, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel—and the show’s host—Anil Kapoor, MI: Ghost Protocol. Patel’s unique attitude and spirit clashed with the jaded and smug Kapoor, but it just worked.

Patel's Malik and Kapoor's Prem on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (in rupees). © Slumdog Millionaire, 2009 Fox Searchlight.

Patel’s Malik and Kapoor’s Prem on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (in rupees). © Slumdog Millionaire, 2009 Fox Searchlight.

This is, by far, (director) Danny Boyle’s best film since Trainspotting. I know, I really went out on a ledge saying that his only Best Picture winner was his best in 14 years. This gem was a very good movie in a pretty mediocre year. That is part of the recipe for success at the Oscars, along with having a feel good ending, periods of confronting injustice and not having Christian Bale in it. Seriously, look at Bale’s résumé and with how many great movies he has been in, without ever acting in a Best Picture. And he came so close when he was a kid in Empire of the Sun!