The greatest movie ever made..!

An absolute waste of money

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Salaam Bombay is hard hitting, brazen and after 113 minutes of some of the most realistic frames to come out of the Indian Cinema, it strips you wide and naked. One is only left with a hypocritical sense of loss and pity. Salaam Bombay slaps and slaps hard on our morality bearing middle class sensibility. It has shown the rubric of the great Indian society. The portrayal of the dirty fundamentals over which our great spiritual society has stood throughout the centuries, is unmistakably brazen and true. Through the lens of Salaam Bombay, the great Indian society and culture seems bloated and hypocritical.Cinematically also, Salaam Bombay is a master piece. The atmosphere created by the camera-work and the background score deserve accolades. Mira Nair was right in saying "No Guts-No Glory".Interestingly, even after quarter of a century, the issues raised in the movie still plagues Bombay and Indian society. Salaam Bombay is the mirror which is required to be shown to many Indian upholders of morality and society.

Whilst recently reading a discussion about Bollywood films that take a serious look at drug abuse,I was excited to find details about a film which seemed to tear all of the Bolltwood glitz & glamour apart,so that it could put a mirror up to the harsh reality behind the shining lights.As I began to read more details about what co-story writer,producer and director Mira Nair had created,I started to hope that I was about to watch something truly special,the I would not forget for a very long time.. The plot:After having a huge falling out with his mother and brother,an 11 year old boy called Krishna is taken to a travailing circus where he is told that until he raises enough money to sort out all the damage that he has done,he must stay away from home and become a worker at a travailing circus.Hoping to raise the cash as fast as possible, Krishna becomes a part of the circus,until one day,after having done an errand, Krishna discovers that the circus has moved on and left him behind.Being left stranded and desperate to raise the cash that he so desperately needs, Krishna uses every penny he's got to get a train ticket to Bombay,in the hope of finding a job that will give him a good wage.Shortly after getting off the train, Krishna runs into a group of street thieves and drug dealers who live near by the cities red light area.Desperate not to be on his own in the extremely intimidating city, Krishna attempts to befriend a gang of kids who are partly being used to sell drugs on the streets for a notorious drug lord/ pimp called Baba Golub.Despite the gang members originally having some doubts over how much they can trust him, Krishna is soon welcomed into the group,thanks to being given a new nickname (Chaipau) and also due to having developed a close bond with an "elder" of the gang called Chillum,who along with being a dealer for Golub,is also a drug abuser himself.Wanting to help his new friend to achieve his goal,Chillum helps Krishna to get a job as a low paid-ed tea deliver.Feeling that his luck is finally changing,Krishana sets his eyes on the most beautiful girl that he has ever seen.who he nicknames as "Sweet Sixteen".Unknown to Krishna,"Sweet Sixteen" is actually a girl who has suffered the horror of being trafficked to Bombay,due to Baba Golub and a madam of his suspecting that someone will pay a high price to take the innocent's of the girl away forever.View on the film: Having a quick listen to the DVD commentary for this movie,I was surprised to hear Mira Nair say that she wanted a sense of hope to be always in the background of this tremendous film,so that the movie would not become completely depressing and bleak.Whilst the sparingly used,melodic score by L.Subramiam does allow a sliver of light to occasionally appear,I have to admit that I found the rest of this unforgettable movie to be one of the most depressing films that I have seen in years!.Using her documentary past as a major influence on this particular work,Nair directs the film with an astonishing attention to detail,as she allows the camera to clearly focus on all of the real chaos taking place in the various drug dens and red light areas used as locations in the movie,whilst always making sure that the events that the films characters battle with are always in the centre of the movie.Despite the film having to attempt in drawing the viewer into a new "world" and its cast of outcasts in less than 2 hours,the elegant screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala does a fantastic balancing act of moving at a surprising pace whilst also making sure to pause and make each character a distinct individual who's despair and flaws can be seen engulfing their entire lives.Checking for any trivia about the movie on IMDb,I was shocked to discover,that although the film features "professional" actors in the lead adult roles, (such as a terrificly menacing performance from Nana Patekar, as the ruthless and cunning Baba Golub)the entire,wonderful child cast of the film was played by street children who Nair had worked with in a number of "acting workshops".For the girl who gets Krishna's heart Chanda Sharma gives a mesmerising performance as "Sweet Sixteen",who despite having hardly any dialogue is able to show how fragile the girl is,as her innocents gets closer to being shattered into a thousand pieces.Being featured in almost every scene of the film,lead actor Shafiq Syed, (who on the DVD interview,seems to have at last found some happiness in his life,after having sadly attempted suicide a number of times in the past) gives a performance that most "adult" actors could only dream of.In the scenes that Syed shares with Krishna's only friend in Bombay,Chillum (played by an amazing Raghuvir Yadav.)Syed displays the perfect mix of being desperate to save his friend from his addictions,whilst also trying his best to not fall into the same nightmare that Chillum has.Nearing the conclusion to this film,Nair brilliantly uses the final moments to solely focus on Syed,With the last shot being completely still,Syed gives the film its devastating knock out blow,as Krishna begins to think about everything that he has lost. Final view on the film:One of the most depressing and most unforgettable films that I have ever seen.

The debut feature by Indian filmmaker Mira Nair is a near-seamless blend of social documentary and coming-of-age dramatics, with the uncompromising honesty of the former combined to all the creative emotion of the latter. In this case the end of innocence doesn't present an easy rite of passage for Nair's young protagonist: a resourceful, homeless adolescent forced to grow old before his time in the mean streets and back alleys of modern Bombay. Every scene was shot on location, and the children in the film are actual homeless kids, all of them coached into remarkably natural performances alongside the few professional actors. The result is an unsentimental look at the bitter cycle of poverty and crime in a city where life is given a rare vitality by its dubious worth. Within the community of thieves, junkies, prostitutes, and pimps is a measure of compassion equal to their misery, and Nair is able to convey the stubborn spark of hope clinging to even the most tragic victims of circumstance. Expect an honest ending, not a happy one.

A highly authentic presentation of the streets of Mumbai (called Bombay in this movie). This movie is much more character and actor driven than story driven, but the acting is very striking and emotional, particularly by the lead actor who plays the young orphan. The story is almost like a documentary and does tend to flit from scene to scene rather haphazardly at times. Nevertheless, the acting more than compensates.The story concerns a group of street children who are struggling for their existence near a brothel. In one of the DVD extra features this story is legitimately compared to the orphans in a Dickens' novel. The life of these abandoned children is truly Dickensenian.If you liked 'Slumdog Millionaire' you should like this. I found the street scenes in 'Salaam Bombay' even more astonishing than 'Slumdog'. Perhaps the storyline in 'Slumdog' is more polished, but the street scenes are even more powerful in 'Salaam Bombay'. There is no glamorization of life in India – this is no Bollywood depiction.