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Sunday 27 May 2012

Out of step

So I'm not alone in being bafffled by the endless acclaim for "Slumdog Millionaire". Thank you, Peter Suderman. I was beginning to doubt my own sanity:

There are times when it's embarrassing to be a movie critic.... "Slumdog" isn't a terrible movie, but it's sappy, suspense-free, and packed with one-note characters, including a female lead who's more object than person. In terms of violence, it's grittier than most similar pictures, but mostly in a desperately "edgy" way that seems designed to gloss over its blatant sentimentality. The best you can say about it is that it's stylish schmaltz.

Danny Boyle, who made his name directing the gonzo drug picture "Trainspotting", is a consummate stylist, and "Slumdog's" best moments are the flashy, set-piece montages Boyle's created out of subconscious blasts of film and high-energy pop music, including several tracks by acclaimed international hip-hop act M.I.A. But briefly exhilarating as these sequences are, they're not movie moments, they're music videos, and they don't make a movie.

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