Over the last few years, it seems as though American and European film audiences have become increasing interested in the Indian film industry. While India has been making films since the 1930’s, it’s Bollywood, the country’s Mumbai-based Hindi language film industry, that has occasionally attracted Hollywood and European stars to appear in films there. In 2008, The Other End of the Line became the first movie to be a partnership between Indian production house, Adlabs with their American counterpart MGM. The film was co-produced by Indian-American producer Ashok Amritraj (Raising Helen) and Patrick Aiello (Asylum).
The Other End of the Line is a standard romantic comedy with some cross cultural controversy thrown in. Priya Sethi (Bollywood starlet Shriya Saran) works in a Mumbai call center for CitiOne Bank. She works the daily night shift so she’s in the same time zone as the western United States. Adopting the persona of Jessica David, a native of San Fransisco, Sethi uses her perfect English to help customers figure out their credit card problems and convince them to pay their bills. Priya’s job causes some tension at home, because she makes more money than her insurance salesman father (Anupam Kher) and he also worries that her job is interfering with her arranged engagement to Vikram Bhaitia (Asheesh Kapur).
One night, she calls, Granger Woodruff (Jesse Metcalfe), who as it turns out, has had his identity stolen and a whole host of credit card transactions erroneously billed to him. Granger is a New York advertising guy trying to land a big hotel account; he’s also a big jerk with a pushy blonde girlfriend. Just the kind of guy you know would hang up on a customer service representative. However, since that would kill the entire premised of the film in the first seven minutes, he doesn’t. Priya likes the sound of Granger’s voice, so she Google’s him. Surprise, surprise, he’s good looking! Granger likes “Jessica’s” phone manner and he’s just broken up with the bossy blonde. The stage for a romance is set.
If you’re like me, you might have been wondering why these conversations go on for weeks–you’d think if the guy’s card number was stolen was stolen, they’d just cancel the card and issue a new one but hey, every movies got to have a gimmick.
Then our adman has an important business meeting in San Francisco and wonders if she’ll meet him for a drink at his hotel. You would think this is where she’d have to tell the truth; after all, she thousands of miles away in India. But never fear, Priya jumps on the next flight to San Francisco.
Because of her globetrotting, Priya ruins her parent’s plans for her arranged marriage and unwittingly leads her family on a wild goose chase to bring her home. All sorts of complications ensue because of Priya’s lies and American and Indian cultural differences but in the end, Priya gets her man.
Goodness knows romantic comedies don’t have a history of striving for truth. However screenwriter Tracy Jackson’s (Confessions of a Shopaholic) story is so implausible, it doesn’t ring true from Jessica’s first call. Further, James Dodson’s ( Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil) culturally tone-deaf direction pushes the script’s situations toward the ridiculous. The only thing that keeps The Other End of the Line from being a totally forgettable film is the pleasant performances by Shriya Saran and Jesse Metcalfe.
The Other End of the Line is featured in widescreen (1:85:1) and although some shots of New York are stock video, there are some really nice shots of India and San Francisco The overall picyure quality is quite good for a standard DVD.
As for audio, the film is presented in English 5.1 Dolby Surround and the film is primarily a dialogue film and very easy to understand. The film features quite a bit of Indian music, giving the film a Bollywood feel.
There are no special features included.
