Singapore is a beautiful place. There is a cinema called the Rex close to Little India that regularly screens Tamil and Hindi films. One of my friends suggested we see a Hollywood-Bombay film in a re-run. The film “the other end of the Line”.
Lest readers wonder, let me set the record straight that it is an English film directed by James Dodson on a story written by Tracey Jackson. The film is co-produced by Anand Amritraj, the famous tennis player. Tracey is closely connected with films having written 14 plots for films and 15 for TV serials. I was particularly
interested in the star cast. The film stars Jesse Metcalfe and Indian starlet Shriya Saran.Jesse is an American star, though he is not among the big names of Hollywood, he has been acting since 2003. He has acted in 6 films and many TV serials.A word about Shriya Saran won’t be out-of-place here. This girl is a versatile actress and she more than anybody exemplifies the diversity and beauty of India.
Shriya was born in Dehradun in Utter Pradesh and is a North Indian. She studied in Lady Shri Ram College at Delhi before she got her break. The beauty is that she starred in Tamil films and was the star of Shivaji the Boss, which is considered the biggest grosser in Tamil films. Shriya Saran has also acted in Telugu films. This is the beauty of India, a North Indian girl making it good in mainstream Tamil and south Indian cinema
She is also good in English and that helped her being cast as the heroine of the other end of the line. The storyline is something a little different from the normal concoction of Mumbai films. The heroine Priya Sethi played by Shriya Saran is employed in a call center of Citi one at Bangalore. There while on her shifts she befriends a customer named Granger Woodruff in the USA.
She poses as a girl from San Francisco named Jennifer David.Priya helps him solve the mystery of fraudulent charges on his credit card. But the chemistry between the two is established and that takes the movie further. At the same time, her marriage is arranged by her father with a dull Indian boy name Vikram. Priya is however not interested in marrying Vikram as she fancies the client from America.
She does something that would be a dream for an Indian girl. She boards a flight to San Francisco to meet Granger and see how he is physical. She lands in San Francisco and Granger is exhilarated to see that the girl he was talking to in the call center is, in reality, an Indian girl, beautiful, sexy and chic. He falls in love head over heels and romance commences between the two.
The beauty of the film is the bridging of two cultures, one American and the other Indian. It’s a beautiful film made more watchable by the incandescent beauty of Shriya Saran. This girl may not have made it big in Hindi films, but here she looks radiant and turns in a wonderful performance. The other actors are mere props to her, though Anupam Kher turns in a polished performance.
The Movie runs at an even pace and all along holds the interest of the viewers. It is certainly recommended for a good afternoon of leisure.
The editing and other technical aspects are good and the direction competent. Certainly worth a view. In case you wish to see it, contact your CD dealer. On a five-point scale, I will give this movie 3.5. That’s pretty good and all credit to Anand Amritraj for giving us an entertaining film
