Slumdog Millionaire（贫民窟的百万富翁）2008A gaudy, gorgeous rush of color, sound and motion, “Slumdog Millionaire,” the latest from the British shape-shifter Danny Boyle, doesn’t travel through the lower depths, it giddily bounces from one horror to the next.A modern fairy tale about a pauper angling to become a prince, this sensory blowout largely takes place amid the squalor of Mumbai, India, where lost children and dogs sift through trash so fetid you swear you can smell the discarded mango as well as its pee l, or could if the film weren’t already hurtling through another picturesque gutter.Mr. Boyle, who first stormed the British movie scene in the mid-1990s with flashy entertainments like “Shallow Grave” and “Transpo r ting,” has a flair for the outré. Few ot her directors could turn a heroin addict rummaging inside a rank toilet bowl into a surrealistic underwater reverie, as he does in “Tran spor ting,” and fewer still could do so while holding onto the character’s basic humanity. The addict, played by Ewan McG regor, emerges from his repulsive splish-splashing with a near-beatific smile (having successfully retrieved some pills), a terrible if darkly funny image that turns out to have been representative not just of Mr. Boyle’s bent humor but also of his worldview: better to swim than to sink.Swimming comes naturally to Jamal (the British actor Dev Patel in his feature-film debut), who earns a living as a chai-wallah serving fragrant tea to call-center workers in Mumbai and who, after a series of alternating exh ilarating and unnerving adventures, has landed in the hot seat on the television game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Yet while the story opens with Jamal on the verge of grabbing the big prize, Simon Beaufoy’s cleverly kinked screenplay, adapted from a novel by Vikas Swarup, embraces a fluid view of time and space, effortlessly shuttling between the young contestant’s past and his present, his childhood spaces and grown-up times. Here, narrative doesn’t begin and end: it flows and eddies — just like life.By all rights the texture of Jamal’s life should have been brutally coarsened by tragedy and poverty by the time he makes a grab for the television jackpot. But because “Slumdog Millionaire” is self-consciously (perhaps commercially) framed as a contemporary fairy tale cum love story, or because Mr. Boyle leans toward the sanguine, this proves to be one of the most upbeat stories about living in hell imaginable. It’s a life that begins in a vast, vibrant, sun-soaked, jampacked ghetto, a kaleidoscopic city of flimsy shacks and struggling humanity and takes an abrupt, cruel turn when Jamal (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar), then an exuberant 7, and his cagier brother, Salim (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail), witness the murder of their mother (Sanchita Choudhary) by marauding fanatics armed with anti-Muslim epithets and clubs.Cast into the larger, uncaring world along with another new orphan, a shy beauty named Latika (Rubina Ali plays the child, Freida Pinto the teenager), the three children make their way from one refuge to another before falling prey to a villain whose exploitation pushes the story to the edge of the unspeakable. Although there’s something undeniably fascinating, or at least watchable, about this ghastly interlude — the young actors are very appealing and sympathetic, and the images are invariably pleasing even when they should not be —it’s unsettling to watch these young characters and, by extension, the young nonprofessionals playing them enact such a pantomime. It doesn’t help even if you remember that Jamal makes it out alive long enough to have his 15 televised minutes. It’s hard to hold onto any reservations in the face of Mr. Boyle’s resolutely upbeat pitch and seductive visual style. Beautifully shot with great sensitivity to color by the cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, in both film and digital video, “Slumdog Millionaire” makes for a better viewing experience than it does for a reflective one. It’s an undeniably attractive package, a seamless mixture of thrills and tears, armchair tourism (the Taj Mahal makes a guest appearance during a sprightly interlude) and crackerjack professionalism. Both the reliably great Irrfan Khan (“A Mighty Heart”), as a sadistic detective, and the Bollywood star Anil Kapoor, as the preening game-show host, run circles around the young Mr. Patel, an agreeable enough if vague centerpiece to all this coordinated, insistently happy chaos.In the end, what gives me reluctant pause about this bright, cheery, hard-to-resist movie is that its joyfulness feels more like a filmmaker’s calculation than an honest cry from the heart about the human spirit (or, better yet, a moral tale). In the past Mr. Boyle has managed to wring giggles out of murder (“Shallow Grave”) and addiction (“Transpo r ting”), and invest even the apocalypse with a certain joie de vivre (the excellent zombie flick “28 Days Later”). He’s a blithely glib entertainer who can dazzle you with technique and, on occasion, blindside you with emotion, as he does in his underrated children’s movie, “Millions.” He plucked my heartstrings in “Slumdog Millionaire” with well-practiced dexterity, coaxing laughter and sobs out of each sweet, sour and false note. No.2 Slumdog Millionaire（贫民窟的百万富翁）2008An orphaned Mumbai slum kid tries to change his life by winning TV's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' in a feelgood fable from director Danny Boyle and the writer of The Full Monty, Simon BeaufoyJamal Malik ('Skins' star Dev Patel) is being beaten by Mumbai police for allegedly cheating on hit TV show 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' One question away from the ultimate 20 million rupee prize, no one, including slick show host Prem (Anil Kapoor), believes a chai wallah (teaboy) like Jamal could know all the answers. As the tough inspector (Irfan Khan) replays Jamal's appearance on the show, it's revealed that each question corresponds to a specific life lesson from Jamal's tragic past.Raised in abject poverty in Mumbai's grimmest slum along with older brother Salim, then orphaned by a Hindu mob attack, Jamal and Salim are forced to fend for themselves on the streets through opportunistic petty crime. They pick up a young girl, fellow orphan Latika (Freida Pinto), escape the clutches of a vicious Fagin-like crime boss, lose Latika, and continue their picaresque adventures, one step ahead of the law. As adolescents, however, Salim becomes entranced by a life of crime and Latika's unexpected return sets brother against brother. Will Jamal salvage his girl, his fortune and his life on 'Millionaire'?Adapted by Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy from Vikas Swarup's hit novel 'Q&A', Slumdog is an underdog tale. Beaufoy's lively screenplay scampers after Swarup's self-consciously Dickensian storytelling tradition, and is even built around the 'Millionaire' show, as iconic a symbol of Western capitalist entertainment as exists.Director Danny Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle have evidently immersed themselves in India's sensory overload. The film revels in the sub-continent's chaotic beauty and raging colours, from Mumbai shantytowns to Agra's regal Taj Mahal. The thrillingly off-the-cuff digital imagery reflects a nation in a state of explosive flux, looming skyscrapers erupting from wasteland, slum kids turning into overnight millionaires through the kiss of television. The film's uniquely vibrant, headlong 21st century rush is that of the infinite possibilities of modern India itself.Slumdog's such a crowd-pleaser that some critics might brand it Boyle's best since Trainspotting . It even echoes a couple of that film's classic set pieces, notably a slum chase reminiscent of Renton and Co's opening Edinburgh dash and a lavatorial incident so stomach-churning (yet hilarious), it makes Trainspotting's infamous toilet scene seem like Ewan McGregor took an Evian bath.In fact, the likable Boyle has been on great form for some time -28 Days Later revamped the zombie movie, Millions is perhaps the best kids film of recent years. No other current British director makes such thrillingly current (all his films are set in either the present or future), kinetic, inherently visual films and proper recognition is long overdue -though, true to form, he's insistent here on crediting co-director Loveleen Tandan, whose major contribution seems to have been unearthing the wonderfully naturalistic kids to play Jamal, Salim and Latika.VerdictA spirited underdog fable marinated in modern India's melting pot. Danny Boyle's still the master of spices.。