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YMMV / Slumdog Millionaire

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  • Adaptation Displacement: You bet your ass that re-releases of Q & A feature Slumdog Millionaire much more prominently than the original title.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: While India didn’t hate the film, per se (Indian reviews were generally positive, and it grossed over 340 million rupees), there was still a large number of people there who didn’t like it. Their complaints included the film's depiction of their country and the city of Mumbai, which seemingly needlessly glamorized the negative stereotypes about India and portrayed it as more impoverished than it actually is, and its apparent ignorance to the actual conventions of Bollywood films in favor of imitating the surface-level clichés.
  • Awesome Music: Among the Oscars were recognitions for A.R. Rahman's work, Best Original Score for his varied mixture of modern and traditional Indian music, and Best Original Song for "Jai Ho", which along with being just fit for a Dance Party Ending became a chart hit in the version by the Pussycat Dolls. Also nominated was "O... Saya", a collaboration with M.I.A. that offers an energetic mixture of Bollywood and hip-hop.
  • Cliché Storm: Has a ton of Bollywood cliches in it, which was likely one of the causes of the film’s more mixed reception in India.
  • Complete Monster: Slum boss Maman is charming, friendly and cheerful to orphans he meets, offering the young Jamal and Salim ice-cold Coca-Colas as well as a place to stay. It is then revealed that Maman takes in orphans to use as a begging ring for him, and the kids are just free labor. Even worse, cripples earn more money, so when children display good singing talent, Maman has them blinded with acid to increase the revenue. When Salim and Jamal escape, Maman captures their friend Latika and several years later gives her the name "Cherry" while intending to use her as a child prostitute. The only reason he hasn't done so already is as a virgin, she's worth a great deal of money. When he finds the young Salim and Jamal, he immediately plans to kill them, declaring "Maman never forgets."
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Almost to the day when the film is being released worldwide — the platforms of the CST, where much of the film (e.g. the "Jai Ho" dance sequence) takes place, is the scene of a particularly bloody terrorist attack.
    • Life Imitates Art to a small extent for the slum-dwelling child stars. One of their houses (still a shack, their limited compensation being tied up in a trust fund) was bulldozed by the government, and another faced allegations that their family tried to sell them for adoption to a wealthy couple.
  • Hype Backlash: After it won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, many people decided to watch the film for themselves... and typically felt that, while good, the simplistic drama and unexpected Bollywood cliches felt significantly out of place in an award-winning film.
  • Memetic Mutation: Anil Kapoor's pronunciation of the word, "Millionaire."
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Maman and his gang blinding little boys to become beggars and prostituting underage girls is the most obvious one. He is like the darkest interpretation of The Fagin from Oliver Twist.
    • Prem Kumar, the game show host crossed it when he tried to cheat and even lied about Jamal and had him tortured for supposedly "cheating". The policemen themselves qualify for torturing someone for hours without proof and even if they were right it was Disproportionate Retribution.
    • Javed Khan as a crime boss was obviously beyond it but onscreen examples are the abuse and scarring of Latika.
    • Salim becomes Javed's willing henchman and helps him prostitute Latika, and also betrays his own brother.
  • Nausea Fuel: How to leave an outhouse over a river with only two exits, a jammed door and... guess it (though if it's any consolation, the actor was just jumping into a substance made of chocolate and peanut butter, hardly the most disgusting thing to be covered in).
  • The Woobie:
    • After seeing how much crap Jamal's gone through, you can't help but want to give him a big hug.
    • Latika was sold into sexual slavery by Jamal's brother Salim.

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