The President Is Coming

I saw this film in New York City for the South Asian Festival. How wonderful to see the first of it's kind and an Indian mockumentary. The film was good fun - the audience loved it and laughed the whole way through. The actors were all very strong - and the script was fast paced and very theatrical.

Always a pleasure to watch Konkona Sen Sharma strutting her stuff. Anand Tiwari is absolutely hysterical - he's one to watch out for.

The cast work very well together as a whole - and the animated sequences are a real treat - that make you think that you are watching some sort of reality TV show - that people get voted out of.

I think this film will do very well in India and abroad!!!!

The story idea was decent. But the movie was bad, very disappointing. I felt the director didn't do a good job because the screenplay was lacking. There were a couple of good scenes that made me laugh. But most of the jokes were contrived.

You can't get away from criticism by calling it a documentary (i.e. low budget). It needs to be compared to a commercial movie. My test is simple - Was it an entertaining movie? After sitting through the whole movie - the answer is No. I felt cheated because the movie could have been better than the final product that was presented.

Konkona Sen Sharma was a waste. I decided to watch the movie as I saw her name in the titles.

I just stumbled upon this movie in a video parlor. Frankly speaking I never had any expectations on this low budged movie. I was quite a pleasantly surprised by the story line.

The movie is quirky, politically sarcastic and immensely hilarious. It has an interesting premise of the famously publicized visit of George Bush visiting India back in 2006. The American Embassy hires a PR Agency to shortlist 6 unique Indians and choose 1 India to "shake" hands with Bush. The choice would be make by going through few competitive rounds.

The movie shows these 6 candidate's personal funny moments, opinions and reactions and funny apprehensions in the competitive rounds. The film successfully depicts Indian crazy euphoria of their American Dreams regardless of how stupid they may be. Each of the candidates are desperate to win. The film successfully brings the best of the sarcasm in the entire socio-political circus.

I specifically liked acting of Anand Tiwari( the freaky financial broker),Konkona Sen Sharma(arrogant Bengali writer) and Shernaz Patel ( PR Co-ordinator).

Overall the film is a great home video entertainer with popcorn. Trust me, you wont regret it!

I trembled while resisting the worst possible rating for this film but in all fairness I've seen worse. At least the promos were creatively misleading and since it's important to actually sit through the ENTIRE film before laying claim to a comprehensive review, I admit I threw up and walked out on this one within the first hour. Let's take it up one by one:

The Acting: is at best shoddy and reminiscent of a self-congratulatory, Mumbai-based English-theatre performance. For those who don't know what this means, it's the equivalent of Timothy Dalton playing Bond or Arnie playing a mother. (Maybe I'm cribbing because I've seen some of these performers botch a perfectly good script on the Mumbai stage as well). The characters are so cocooned in caricaturisation that they you can't connect with them any more than you would with Puff-the-magic-dragon.

The Direction: is amateur and unimaginative. Sorry KRK but the reality- TV style is losing its sheen unless you bring something to it. Those forced silences and awkward moments just don't work if you're not going to bring an element of the panopticon to it.

The Production: Cut, cut, cut. I read someone say this film is slick but in my opinion you could trip on the gaps between cuts. I could hear myself grind my teeth between bad performances because for some reason the producer wanted me to notice they were BAD.

It pains me to write this because I actually knew KRK back in college and loved his stage performances and steady supply of off-stage wit but I'm thoroughly disappointed at the hack job that's been put together with "The President is Coming". Let this be a lesson to all foreign dignitaries to steer clear of this country just so we don't have to be subjected to another one of these abominations.

Michael Moore - Fahrenheit 9/11. What did he do? Collected pieces of facts, joined them nicely with his hypotheses to prove his point against George Bush in a documentary style format. Treading the similar path is Kunal Roy Kapur who takes Presidents visit to India and weaves a nice fictionalised story on the process of "hard man is good to find" for shaking hands with him.

¤ Vivek Gomber & Ira Dubey as "American Desi" Rohit and "I am like confused" Archana:: What good is a Bollywood story without a love-story? The bitter-sweet couple has a touch of love, sacrifice and lived- happily-ever-after.

¤ Namit Das as the "I want to have the cake and eat it too" Ramesh:: Looks wise very authentic. Until now I thought the actor was actually a South-Indian.

¤ Anand Tiwari as "Gujju trader" Kapil Dev:: Again splendid. Note the finer nuance when he racks his brains to demonstrate his knowledge the scrip codes of stock market. And his mentality of using money-power to buy the completion is well enacted.

¤ Konkana Sen as "crafty" Maya:: Falls short in terms of expectations perhaps because the other characters come about much stronger than her. Her attempts to ward off competition was not quite impressive and sheep in the wolves clothing was no surprise either.

¤ Imran Rasheed as "Security" Aslam:: Very short role. Pay attention how genuinely he does Salaam.

¤ Satchit Puranik as "the educated fundamentalist" Ajay Karlekar: His mannerism, costume and look gives a very authentic feel.

¤ Aakash Khurana as "Help, I am a celebrity - get me out of here": Was wasted. I think he was dropped or opted out during production.

¤ Shernaz Patel as "The Devil Wears Prada" Sam:: Was loud and hammed. Should have watched Meryl Streep for homework.

¤ Shivani as "underdog" Ritu:: Miscast and perhaps didn't utilise the potential the character had to offer.

The characters are very much true-to-life as each one of them is distinct leaving a lasting impression on the viewers mind. The actors deserve special mention for they literally get into the skin of the character with the mannerism and accent. Wonder if they are very much same in real life.

The last 15-minutes deserved better writing for it was kind of coming especially the part when the penny is dropped.

Anyways, brave attempt.