Millions (2004)

Instant Favorite.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Director Danny Boyle brings this fable set in the north of England just as Britain is about to switch from Sterling to Euros.Two young kids Damien and Anthony Cunningham move house after the death of their mother and playing near a railway track they come across a bag full of sterling cash which is about to become obsolete. Seven years old Damien is a sweet imaginative kid who thinks he is being guided by Catholic saints and thinks the money is a gift from God. His nine year old brother Anthony is more worldly wise and realises they should keep quiet about their find.However both kids find it difficult not to spend the money, especially Damien who wants to do good deeds but their is a stranger lurking about who wants to claim the money back.Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce writes an edgy idealistic film with a dose of magic realism but without cynicism that money does not buy you happiness but you can do good with it.

A quirky, fun and ultimately very moving 'family' film (although way more grown up than that tag usually implies). Two young brothers from a working class Irish family find a bag of cash. One wants to spend it, invest it, use it, but the other feels compelled to follow the lead of the saints and give it to the poor. A film with a lovely sense of humor, of family and of the way a kid sees the world. It has a few sticky-sweet moments, but they're much more than made up for by the very real moments of tension, humanity, loss, humor and emotion, Terrific performances all around, and given high energy by the always entertaining, wildly talented Danny Boyle. A film with the true spirit of Christmas, even if it's not a 'Christmas film'.

I'm not sure that any movie has left me in a bigger emotional mess at the end, ever. It is very hard to find a film where its driving force is good-natured, pure, simple innocence. Everything is cynical, dry or overly-clever.Millions manages to encapsulate the simple joys and pains of childhood and put it up on screen in remarkable fashion. Sure it's a little gooey, but it's a good kind of gooey. Here is a film with something of a spiritual backbone, but not in a way that is preachy or overly top-down.A gem of an idea is backed up with amazing style. Director of Photography Anthony Dod Mantle pulls all sorts of tricks out of his hat, each appropriate and enriching to the film as a whole. Alex Etel's performance is superlative; the camera goes right in his eyes and you can see palpable emotion from the child actor there.The storytelling device of introducing the Saints, Damian's "imaginary friends", is handled deftly and sweetly, not in a silly, obvious manner. The actors who portray the saints, including Enzo Cilenti and Alun Armstrong, have a down-to-earth, human manner about them that puts the audience at ease and allows us to enjoy their presence just as the character of Damian does.The film harks back to old-fashioned children's' films, with its slimy villain, morally off-center older brother, honest hardworking dad and larger-than-life backdrop. When the waterworks start to flow, the audience won't feel cheated, because the film worked hard at creating (not engineering) that emotion, and deserves it.

Danny Boyle is a film maker who has a very mixed success . His early career after the success of SHALLOW GRAVE and TRAINSPOTTING was seriously dented by the critical and commercial failure of A LIFE LESS ORDINARY . He made a great come back when 28 DAYS LATER became a surprise hit in the United States . Strangely he decided to follow this up by directing a strange family film type fantasy for BBC films . You have to hand it to Boyle , he's not someone who plays it safe but neither does he do his cause much good by making obscure movies in different genres One problem with Boyle it's been stated is that the second half of his films never maintain the standard of the first . The problem with MILLIONS is that he directs in a literally comic book style , very similar to the end style of A LIFE LESS ORDINARY . Peter Jackson has received heavy criticism by concentrating on visual directorial flourishes on THE LOVELY BONES when he should have concentrated more on narrative and Boyle probably makes the same mistake here when the film needs more of a intimate style than a cartoonish one The story itself becomes much engaging in the second half since it ditches its fantasy element and becomes much more of a conventional film . It's also interesting to realise how much it owes to Boyle's earlier SHALLOW GRAVE and there's a sequence where the protagonists watch an episode of WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLONAIRE , a TV show that was at the core of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE Having said this it's certainly one of Boyle's lesser films and you can understand why it wasn't an international hit . Perhaps this was the reason that made Boyle direct SUNSHINE , a movie that was supposed to be a science fiction epic but unfortunately got a limited release in the USA .