Is it too soon to pronounce Slumdog Millionaire this years finest Toronto International Film Festival entry? Of course not! Director Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions, Sunshine) has not only delivered another masterpiece blending authentic culture and heart with a knockout audio-visual experience, but he may just have sewn up the world's first Bollywood-Hollywood hybrid global hit.

Slumdog Millionaire is the story of two brothers, Jamal and Salim. The two share a mischievous life amidst the hectic squalor of a Mumbai slum. Things turn from hectic to tragic quickly after a religion-fueled riot orphans the boys and sets them on the course of slum dogs, street hustlers navigating the cutthroat realities of the vast urban tapestry of modern India. Yet this is no simple coming of age narrative. Rather, Jamal relates the story of his life while being tortured and interrogated by brutal police officers. His perceived crime is fraud of which he is accused after reaching the highest ever sum on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

This device works wonderfully. After interrogation by beating and electrocution fails to force a confession of wrongdoing from Jamal, an officer interrogates him, asking how he, a mere slum dweller, would have been able to answer the increasingly more difficult questions posed by the Indian answer to Regis, played with sardonic, decidedly sleazy charm by Bollywood mega-star Anil Kapoor. The thing is, his humble roots and harsh upbringing as a public toilet operator, garbage picker, beggar, fake tour guide and eventually street hustler provided him with a deep cross-cultural education.

Female slumdog Latika circles in and out of the brothers lives and from childhood, it seems written that she and Jamal are destined to be together. So, amidsty the chaos a tasty love story is also in place. Brother Salim on the other hand, seems destined for a bad end, given his lack of the moral compass which shields Jamal from so many of the dire circumstances surrounding him.

Three sets of child actors play each of Jamal, Salim and Latika through their young lives, all delivering the performances of their lives. Boyle and his long time cinematographer Antony Dod Mantle pull no punches, blending handheld slum chase scenes with panoramic beauty shots of the squalor and the glory of modern India. One scene where young Jamal makes a disgusting choice in order to secure the autograph of a film star is classic Boyle. Meanwhile, the soundtrack, which features tracks from M.I.A. as well as A.R. Rahman, lays down a pulsing back beat that accentuates the fervent pace of the film.

Slumdog Millionaire proves that Boyle, who has now mastered such genres as murder mystery, drug punk comedy, horror, science fiction and charming family drama, is one of the modern masters of cinema. Gush much? Yes, yes I do. But only when I really mean it.