Sep 18, 2009 06:27 AM
2039 Views
(Updated Sep 19, 2009 09:43 PM)
Very rarely you come across movies, where one eagerly wonders what is going to happen next and a pleasant laughing surprise spews out, this one falls into that category.
This movie has plenty of rib tickling laughter, with a sensitive background portrayal of poverty slipped in here and there.
The movie plot revolves around Todd Anderson (brilliantly played by Josh Hamilton) whose office's order fulfillment function gets shipped to India and he needs to train his replacement there.
The entry of Todd to India (the wild ride from the airport to a hotel, the stomach upsets a foreigner immediately faces, the nosy aunty in the paying guest accommodation) is brought out really well.
Upon starting the job, the con goes on, the order fulfillment call centre is a ramshackle building with unfinished roof, with dirt roads leading up to it. The rest of the story is how he reduces the minutes per incident from 12 minutes to less than 6 minutes, how he empowers the locals and is well liked and fate have it, the function is slated to move to China, with the race to find the lowest costs.Some of the conversations/scenes are downright funny and very original.
Todd comes home from a hard day of work and the nosy aunty tells him, you do not have energy, you seem to be quite sick, do you like to meet an Indian girl, he says he is not interested, then she asks are you homosexual, then he says pardon, she says you know liking boys and not girls..the bewildered look on Todd's face...hehe
A caller from USA thinking that he is buying an American product but upon knowing the call centre is in India, gets very agitated and he makes life difficult for the operator, then the supervisor Asha (played by Ayesha Dharker) takes over the call and says "sir, there is a similar product being sold by an American firm, and then the customer says ok, what is the price, Asha says "212 dollars", the customer says "ok I will buy the product from you". Fantastic depiction of the duplicity of nationalistic pride in the face of cheap prices.
The scenes where Todd and Asha get down and dirty in Hotel Kamasutra of all places.Another scene where she tells Todd that she is engaged to someone but is not so happy that she has had only one "Holiday in Goa" experience (with Todd) before marriage to the utter disbelief on Todd's face
