Great movie! It is amazing how much research Danny did to get everything right. If this movie was made by some Bollywoodian he would have taken those middle class kids who appear in every other advertisement to play the characters of slum dwellers Jamaal, Saleem and Latika.
99% movies made in India have a middle or upper class protagonist these days. Some of the sets are such which will make South Mumbai look like a slum. A foreiner makes a movie with a slum dweller as a protagonist and everyone cries foul. Living in a classist society we somehow fear that we will now be known in the world as a slum class. Its a shame that in a country where 65% people live in poverty poor people have no representation in celluloid stories. And if someone from abroad makes one we pounce on him.
The term underbelly is being used so often for the poor people that it has started sounding like an insult to the have-nots who represent a majority. 65% population is not an underbelly they are the nation. Just because they don't own the concrete of our cities and sleep on pavements and in slums doesn't mean they have nothing to do with India. Making a movie with one of them as the protagonist doesn't mean it is an insult to us. A foreigner has shown the mirror to Bollywood. While Bollywood keeps making movies with NRIs in mind a foreigner has made a truly global Bollywood movie which is worth all the praise it received by sane people.
