My Review of "The White Tiger"

The White Tiger is Netflix's latest 2021 film that they've just released. They seem to be hitting some homeruns as of late and killing the competition as they're not releasing anything to take the hype away. I hope they continue to keep this upwards momentum. In the meantime let's talk about this latest new release from the streaming giant.

This movie starts off with with three different periods in time. A lot of movies and shows seem to be doing this lately. Or at least I've been noticing this trend. It starts off in the middle of the story and then cuts to somewhere close to the end of the movie only to go back to the beginning of the story. It's an interesting way to tell a story because we sort of know what's going to happen to our hero Balram since he seems somewhat successful right from the start of the movie.

The reason it's told this way is to explain to us how he was brought up and to understand the conflict in his decisions. His narration is supposed to be a letter he's writing to a premier of China. He wants to drum up more business for himself as he's now an entrepreneur. This is why in his letter he wants to explain that he came from nothing.

He starts off in a little village and uses caged roosters as a metaphor for his life story. He is born and bred to become a servant. Much of the impoverished know nothing of what they could possibly be and their aspirations are low. The caged roosters represent the people of the lower class. They're all bred to become food. They know they're going to die and they never fight to escape. He sees this in all of his friends and family in his small village. Family is the only thing that dies the poor together.

You see the upper class hire the poor to be their servants and keep track of their family. Should any of their servants get out of line they would risk the lives of their families as the rich are able to pretty much get away with murder.

All Balram knows is to make as much money as he can to help support his family in his village. In order to do that he has to pretty much do whatever his bosses tell him to do. He gets a job with a very affluent family and the longer he works for them he learns how corrupt and unjust India is in general. Through a series of events he starts to build up more anger and resentment for the family he works for. We know from the beginning he ends up successful so the big question is what did he do to get there.

A lot of fun is just wondering what did Balram do. There's a lot of explanation into why he did what he did and the conflict within himself to do it. The intensity just ramps up as he is at the verge of crossing the line and when he does you are in for a treat.

The reason why I think a lot of people will resonate with this film is because there's a lot of truth to what Balram goes through in the rest of the world. A lot of us do feel like slaves to others and really we are free to do what we want to do. He makes us ask ourselves the question, "what is holding me back from doing what I want to do?" This is the question he asks himself constantly. There's another character in the movie that kind of helps him figure this out himself when he himself loses his own ambitions.

Balram of course isn't the nicest of people himself. He doesn't really go through a crazy transformation like say Michael Corleone of the Godfather. There are some big changes for him but he does stay the same as he was before. His actions have reason and make sense for his character. I did however found that they kind of rushed the ending a bit. The part where he talks about how he becomes successful is kind of rushed through. It would have been nice if it was like the rest of the movie where they went into some detail.

The acting is pretty spot on with some great performances from everyone. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. This movie was a bit of a surprise for me so early on in the year. I hope that they continue making movies this good on Netflix. It goes to show that you don't have to have tons of violence in order to make a good movie. You just have to have some great character development like this movie.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen with all the anticipation that it built up. It was fun to guess where Balram was going to snap or do something crazy as he gradually gets unhinged. I have to give this movie an 8 out of 10. This is a movie that I would recommend for a lot of my friends. I hope you give it a try as well.