The President is Coming

There are a lot of people who are ready to do ‘anything’ for 2 minutes of fame ... and I get a feeling that in our over-populated country, this sentiment is growing stronger day by day. So if the grand prize is spending two minutes with the most powerful man in the free world as the face of ‘the young India’, what would YOU do ?

‘The President is Coming’ is about a reality TV competition to choose one young Indian to shake George W. Bush’s hand on his India visit (The opening screen of the movie tells you in bold letters that is a fictitious account, lest you take it seriously :). The Mumbai consulate entrusts this onerous job on a two-woman-PR-agency – admirably played by Shivani Tanksale and Shernaz Patel. They proceed to shortlist 6 wacko individuals (each convinced of his/her superiority) and lock them up in a room for an 18 hour-long competition ... and what you get is a perfect comedy – or well ... almost !!

Let me read out the contenders

• Maya Roy is a young author (played by Konkona Sen Sharma) who dreams of winning the Booker Prize one day ...
• Ajay Karlekar is a MBA-turned-social-worker who is also in the fascist Shiv Sena mold ...
• Kapil Dev Dholakia is your Gujarati stock broker who just dreams of the stock markets ...
• Archana Kapoor is a super-rich Delhite bimbo who runs a lipstick business and whose ‘daddy’ is among the five richest Indians ...
• Rohit Seth is a accent-trainer for Gurgaon BPOs ...
• Ramesh S is the geek working in Microsoft, who dreams about his H-1B visa ...

They sound very caricaturish, don’t they ? Well they are that and much more. I cant remember having laughed so hard in a movie since ... Dostana I guess. The characters, while staying true to their caricature roots, indulge in such ridiculous sequences that you just cant help bursting out with laughter. And no, its not the ‘Welcome’ kind of stupid jokes - just the characters making incessant fun of the stereotypes they each represent. The fascist social worker ranting about divorced women, the geek about sexual fantasies etc … And the less said about the sanity of the actual competition, the better.

The only thing I can reveal about this part of the movie is that its shot completely in a documentary-cum-reality-show kind of way and the movie is much better because of it. And the fact that after the intermission, the movie sorta loses its humour as it begins eliminating the contenders one by one. But its not so bad as the movie itself is just 1 hour 45 min long. And the only thing you are going to come out of the movie with is chuckling about one of the gags. My favorite one was the one about the Kotak broker ... :)

So my recommendation - definitely dont miss it!