For reasons that should probably be unclear to anyone who is not a dolt, the MPAA yesterday hit Danny Boyle’s awesome, Fox Searchlight–distributed Slumdog Millionaire — a feel-good movie following the life story of a Mumbai street kid accused of cheating on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire — with an R rating, a move likely to hinder its awards chances and certainly its box office. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the reasons cited are for “some violence, disturbing images and language,” but we saw Slumdog on Tuesday and can’t, for the life of us, figure out what they found so objectionable.
Yes, there’s a little violence, but it’s hardly, as /Film points out, The Dark Knight (which inexplicably escaped with a PG-13). And of course there are a few disturbing images — the movie’s set in poverty-ridden slum — but it’s hardly the stuff nightmares are made of. Also, we can’t specifically recall the use of a single F-bomb. So what’s the deal? Was the MPAA scared by the sight of so many brown people?
Slumdog Millionaire Gets Rated R?! What!? [/Film]
MPAA ratings: Oct. 22, 2008 [HR]
