Belen's Slumdog Essay

Every movie has a bad guy, villain, or trader; in the case of Slumdog Millionaire, the antagonist in the film is the character, Salim. Salim is classified as the antagonist throughout the movie, because he continuously makes his younger brother, Jamal suffer since they were children. From the time that he locked Jamal inside a latrine, stopping him from getting an autograph of Jamal’s favorite actor, to the time he took away his love, Latika preventing them from being together. With the death of their mother at a young age, Salim and Jamal only had each other. Then again, that doesn’t always mean that the only family you have will always support and love you. However, Salim makes his final decision because he feels guilty for preventing his brother from enjoying his life and being happy restricting him from Latika and making him feel miserable.
It was not expected for Salim to let Latika out because he never wanted her to interact with them. When sleeping under a small shed during a rainstorm the first day Jamal and Salim lost their mother, Latika was out in the rain getting drenched playing in the mud by herself. The setting of this scene was in the rain emphasizing the emotions of sadness and depression of the young brothers caused by the massacre that happened earlier that killed their mother. Latika was the only person outside the shed being soaked in the middle of the street and Salim didn’t want her to be inside because he believed that he caused trouble. The director chose this setting due to it being the beginning of disaster for Salim having to go through the trouble of separating Jamal from her. Latika now older was surprised by Salim’s demand of fleeing while she still had the chance; Latika was kind of contemplating w...

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... calling out his name we have just witnessed Jamal win twenty million rupees. When Javed opens the door Salim is in the bathtub full of rupee notes with his gun in his hand and has shot Javed. However, the 3 thugs that were behind Javed shoot Salim and he dies saying “God is good.”
In my perspective I think that Boyle intended the audience to see him as a mean and selfish person and continuously when he is older. Throughout the movie it seems like he makes
Jamal suffer through a lot of sadness caused by his brother when in reality if you think about it he was only trying to protect Jamal from harmful things since Salim was the oldest and having their mom pass away at such a young age, it has his job to be in charge and protect him. Salim was a good brother and his final decision was made to give Jamal the life he wanted and did deserve after having an awful childhood