Posted by Tony Sebastian who has made a new year resolution - 1280*1024 pixels

Rated by many as the best movie of the year, I set about watching this movie with a whole lot of expectations. It would be unfair to say that I was disappointed, however, much like The Dark Knight, I was left only partially satisfied.

This movie wins the appreciation of the viewers with its novel premise, one which makes you want to watch the whole movie - What if a guy from the slums with hardly any education- a slumdog, were to win a much celebrated KBC-esque gameshow? Although the subplots run along predictable lines, the premise is so fascinating that it contrives to make the movie likeable.

Jamal Malik enters the gameshow 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' and wins Rs 10 Million, He is accused of cheating and is picked up by the police. He tells us his fascinating and (at least for the foreign audience) a fairy tale of a life story. Jamal relates his answering of the questions on the show to various incidents which occurred in his life.

Although the incidents are longshots and more often downright outrageous (the blind kid knowing Benjamin Franklin for one) and very frequently conflict with character sketch of the slum dwellers, the premise comes to the rescue again and works like a magic glue which produces a (nearly) seamless bond.

The movie follows the very interesting lives of Jamal and Salim Malik, through the slums and streets of Mumbai and Delhi. Their intelligence and improvisation get them through the hardships of life. Their impishness and cheek puts a smile on ours, and sometimes makes us laugh out loud. The underlying satire is very obvious and tugs quite hard at our heart-strings and conscience strands.

The cast keeps changing throughout the movie as Jamal and his brother grow up, and although the newer Jamals and Salims bear hardly any resemblance to the older ones, each of them have performed commendably. It was nice to see Tanay Chheda (Rajan Damodaran from Taare Zameen Par) do a reasonably good "middle" Jamal.

The cast and the crew have done an exceptional job in portraying the India of the slums and the underworld. The dialogues alternate between Hindi and English and though there aren't many that pack a punch, they sound believable and adequate.

The movie has all the stereotypes of the modern Indian story, the pathetic life of the slum dwellers, communal riots, inhumane police officers, call centre executives and the underworld mafia which runs Mumbai- cliches dark enough to make the foreign viewer watch the movie in awe. Although there is the occasional mention of how Mumbai has become the centre of the world, it is only for a fleeting moment and one which would go unnoticed by most viewers.

I personally would like to have seen something which paints India a little brighter, but I guess not all is rosy in my home country, and a point (if it is one) which should not reflect on the quality of the movie.

And, as Shashi Tharoor pointed out, if a heavily misinformed movie like "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" which portrays Indians as monkey-brain-eaters received 93% fresh reviews on rotten tomatoes, there is no doubt that Slumdog Millionaire with its very original depiction of a section of Indian lives will make waves far and wide.

The reason Vikas Swarup's novel failed to gain much public attention (as was evident when I had to point out to at least 10 people that the movie was a remake of a book by an Indian author) was perhaps its mediocre branding. The name "Q and A" just doesn't hit you hard enough. There has to be something more to make you pick up a book and read it. Slumdog Millionaire overcomes these obstacles by being a movie and having an enchanting name.

Make no mistake, this is (what most people would consider) an awesome movie and a very Indian one at that, with great music by A.R Rahman, and remains so down to the last scene where the protagonist gets his long lost lover when the movie ends with destiny's own tag line - "It was written".

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