Quick take: Slumdog Millionaire

Yes, we finally saw it. The best thing about Slumdog Millionaire is its sheer old-fashioned entertainment value. It's practically a catalog of the oldest elements of the art form: Kisses, chases, street urchins, and damsels in distress. Yet all those tropes mesh seamlessly with outstanding modern (digital) cinematography and editing. What seems stale and predictable in a movie like Changeling feels both familiar and suspenseful in Slumdog. Partly, that's due to the fact it takes place in a world unknown to most Westerners. And its Bollywood sense of melodrama goes to the edge but never over it. But most of all, Slumdog Millionaire lets us root for a character we fully believe in.