An average movie

To be honest, it has been a while since I saw this movie but, for some reasons, I’m pretty sure I actually ended up watching it in the movie theater when it was released. Back then, I was just about 12-13 years old and it might seem a rather odd choice but the whole thing definitely had an impact on me. Indeed, it must have been the first movie I saw dealing with the slums in India (and after all these years still one of the few Western productions dealing with this subject) and I think it gave a realistic and interesting look on this topic. The only thing that bothered me with this movie was probably this old gimmick of having a white guy helping the locals who seem to be rather helpless without their white helper. Some people might argue that it is actually fairly racist but I think it is actually more a commercial choice. Indeed, movies are so expensive, even more nowadays, it is pretty much impossible to sell a movie without a famous Western actor playing the main character, even if in this case, it would be much more compelling to focus on the Indian people fighting their own struggle without the help of your typical White hero.  At least, Patrick Swayze was not bad here and I think he actually gave one of his best performances.  To conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested by this subject.