Trash

When Rafael find a wallet on the dump while searching for recycling, he thinks it is his lucky day. The wallet doesn't contain the usual items and instead has details of a locker and a schedule of dates. When he tells his friend Gardo, he is told not to say or do anything. So when the police turn up and ask about the missing wallet, he has to run before he is silenced.

This at first glance seems like the production company making a very direct attempt at replicating the success of Slumdog Millionaire. That is even more evident if you then see the talent that have stepped up to work on the piece.The ever capable Richard Curtis adapted the piece, his production company financed the piece and purchased the rights which derives from a well known novel. Stephen Daldry has directed the film and is a well liked and known director of solid fare. Then it has weighted stars such as the excellent Martin Sheen and the beautiful Rooney Mara. It reads well, looks great and songs almost as good. As it grows over the course of its near two hours, we find it is a parable about the fragility of the developing and modern world. It is very well people say that horrors are taking place in the developing world but without a gateway in, we can not break into the realms. So often it is children that help us break in and here we have a group that are fun and easy to emotionally connect with. The points raised by the piece are even more heart felt and as of today, exceptionally truthful because of this. Endemic corruption, police brutality, Child exploitation and the cheap cost of human life are all written into the complex web of the piece. It takes these all on directly but handles them with compassion and a level of lite weighted ease.

The only problem in the end with the whole is that it becomes too light weight and descends into slock. That is to say that it pulls its punches enough as not to be worth considering in anyway other than Hollywood award bait. The awards bodies and voters probably saw what I did and grimaced. The merits of the second paragraph, destroyed by the third it seems. The film that should have been City of God for the Western market became Disney does Slumdog Millionaire without bite and set in Brazil. This is a film that may have played that game and lost it, Think of it like Brazil would play football, they played with grace and style but score and score well. The only problem is they played Germany or in this case played a group that wanted financial security....Sad really only played a little like the Brazilian team of old this would have been amazing.