Outsourced

If you haven’t heard about this movie, don’t be surprised – it had almost zero publicity. (Australia atleast had a few big hoardings around Mumbai). These few weeks are lean times as far as movie releases are concerned – there is nothing substantial hitting the screens between 25th Dec (Ghajini) and 23rd Jan (Chandni Chowk to China). So be ready for some small-budget-movie fun – some of them are quite good.

This one almost gets there, but trips at the last 100 m.

The name of the movie is a giveaway as far as the story is concerned. It begins with call centre manager Todd Anderson being told by his boss that his entire department has been outsourced – and worse, he has to goto India to train the team there! As expected, Todd struggles against the culture shocks, including his name - and spicy food - when he lands in India. For some inexplicable reason, he is called Mr. Toad by all and sundry in the movie. And his work is based in an imaginary Mumbai suburb called Gharapuri (Wikipedia tells me that Gharapuri is actually another name for Elephanta Island).

But inspite of pandering to quite a few clichés - including a ridiculous cow that keeps wandering into the callcenter - Outsourced is very wittily written and doesn’t allow these clichés to put you off from this movie. And it uses the clichés rather well – eliciting frequent guffaws from the audience. Considering that this was intended for American audiences, I consider it quite an achievement for the makers that it appeals to us Indians equally well.

The going is pretty good – till the love angle kicks in. Ayesha Dharker plays Asha, one of the call center employees – who Todd falls in love with in the most cheesiest of sequences. In Hotel Kamasutra, no less !! I personally don’t like Ayesha Dharker’s looks at all and it doesn’t help that her role in the second half is written quite stupidly – you can make out that this portion was written completely with an American viewpoint.

After this fall, the movie loses its way a little and stumbles around, before the final showdown in front of Todd’s boss. That part of the movie feels like a sports movie, where a coach starts off with a really bad team, but improves them drastically and they make it to the finals – and they are just one game away from glory !!

So should you watch this movie or not? I would say yes - even though I am awarding it only a 2.5 star. Because its a warm-hearted movie, with plenty of funny sequences that linger in your head. And because it includes a negative 0.5 star for the Hotel Kamasutra sequence !!