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Slumdog Millionaire is the film of the year according to everyone and your grandmother; but without the hype surrounding this visually stunning piece, the film is mediocre. At its core Slumdog is a flat, predictable tale about flat, predictable characters. Whatever you do, do not see a rounded, emotionally complex film like The Wrestler first and then see Slumdog; it makes it that much worse. Mid-way through Danny’s Boyle’s Mumbai epic about a slumdog winning a million dollars on a knock off of a Regis Philbin game show, you become upset you were swindled into the hype of this Bollywood flick on steroids.

The film centers around an impoverished child from the slums of Mumbai named Jamal (Dev Patel in a mildly annoying performance). Directors Boyle and Tandan and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy use the struggle and torture of this innocent protagonist as a dramatic device to win over the audience in a very cheap way. Instead of creating an engaging story or character worthy of our genuine interest, we simply see this flawless and just character become a sacrificial lamb to the other devices in the film. As Jamal answers questions on Who Wants to be A Millionaire he relives every part of his gruesome life that corresponds to each answer: we watch his mother die, see him living in the dumps (literally), his love interest kidnapped several times, and we must also endure his physical abuse at the hands of his brother and nearly everyone else in the film. After an hour you give up: we get it…he really deserves to win this money.

Boyle and company also don’t really care to develop any characters beyond a few played out clichés: the evil brother who does everything wrong, the helpless victim woman/love interest, the crime lord who gets his in the end. Through all of this, however, Jamal remains the ever strong and just figure who never gets corrupted and never does anything wrong and in the end he is rewarded for his efforts by getting the girl of his dreams and a lot of money. Wow.

While there are some genuinely interesting moments in the film: the splashes of humor, the cinematography and the music; the standardized plot and characters make this work good at best. There are many people who completely disagree with me saying that this was the film that needed to be made and that this film finally shows what it is like to live on the streets of Mumbai. Really? So everyone in Mumbai fits into a caricature and dances in the streets spontaneously: I’ve never been to Mumbai, but I’m guessing not. The shallow plot and characters of Slumdog seem to do more of an injustice to the severity the film depicts. In fact, with all the rampant poverty and social injustice issues this film brings to light, it makes little sense that millions of dollars were spent to make a fictionalized account of a very real problem. I have a better idea: take 90% of that money, give it to the people of Mumbai, let their lives flourish a bit and film a documentary about it; that is more real than what you’ll see in the bloated and fictitious Slumdog Millionaire.