The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Britain is switching from Pounds to Euros. A gang of thieves rob a train loaded with the old money to be incinerated. One of the bags of money falls into Damian (Alex Etel)'s playhouse. He's obsessed with religious saints and has fantasies. He's moved into a new house with his older brother Anthony and father after the death of his mother. Then a creepy man (Christopher Fulford) comes looking for the money.I love the fantastical style that Danny Boyle puts into this. It's backed up by a heart warming story and a very cute Alex Etel. The boy's innocence is adorable and heartbreaking. The saints are such a wonderful and unusual touch. It's a family movie that doesn't play down to the kids. It is funny and packed with interesting ideas.

As the story opens, we meet brothers Damian and Anthony, who have just lost their mother. The family moves to a new house to begin life without her, and Damian finds a big bag full of cash. This sounds like a dream come true, but in two weeks' time, England will switch to Euros and the Pound will be worthless. The boys have to come up with creative ways to spend the money (before a very scary man finds it and them).This is a sweet and uplifting movie and I enjoyed it a lot. Damian and Anthony are likable and real, cute without being cutesy. Danny Boyle directed the 2004 film and gave it a just the right amount of heart with a clever script. Damian is an innocent, religious little boy who often "sees" and talks to various saints; these scenes are witty and not disrespectful.This is a warm film the whole family will enjoy and it made me wonder what I would do with a bagful of cash.

What do you do if you find a sack of pounds a few days before the UK switches to euros, and you are a rather earnest 7 year old? And you take advice from saints who appear to you personally? Danny Boyle's enchanting little morality tale recounts the dilemma faced by Damian when his natural inclination towards philanthropy falls foul of assorted pressures which pull in different directions.There is a good cast who all give decent performances (although one wonders why the strongly Ulster-accented James Nesbitt was called on to do Manchester), but the film stands on the performances of its young actors, and particularly 10 year old Alex Etel as Damian. Fortunately, he is excellent.

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 .