Phas Gaye Re Obama

Produced by Revel Films and marketed by Warner Bros., “Phas Gaye Re Obama” (2010, “We are Trapped Obama” in Hindi) is a satire on the meltdown of the American economy that started in 2008. After seeing “Phas Gaye Re Obama,” the film affirms my belief in the development of parallel cinema in Bollywood. This type of cinema deviates from the conventional Bollywood formula. More so, the filmmakers supporting the parallel cinema are not afraid of employing nontraditional filming choices, even at the cost of alienating themselves from the wider Bollywood audience.

While the traditional mainstream Bollywood is a purely escapist form of entertainment, the parallel Bollywood cinema banks on realistic stories of people living in the middle and lower-middle classes. It’s a hybrid cinema that is texturally artistic as well as commercially viable. Films like “Omkara” (2006), “Dev D.” (2009), “Ishqiya” (2010), “Peepli [Live]” (2010), and the upcoming “Dhobhi Ghaat: Mumbai Diaries” (2011) are realistic, thought-provoking stories about common people. Indeed, first-time director Subhash Kapoor’s initial attempt at comedy with “Phas Gaye Re Obama” is a nice addition to the parallel cinema.

The film makes an instant connection with its theme of the recent global recession. But at the core, the tale of the goons in the film is similar to the story of the Wall Street traders before the recession. Although the story’s structure is not laid in this manner, people familiar with the U.S. economic crisis of the past few years will find the plot particularly entertaining. In simple financial terms, the film specifically highlights two scenarios: acquiring an asset and transferring a risky asset.

Michael Lewis’s recent book “The Big Short” explains the cause of the crisis in simple terms. First, give mortgages to as many people as possible. Second, create an equity product on mortgages and then sell the product to institutional buyers. Third, create a bigger market for this product, even when the risks are known, and then sell it to big banks. Finally, big banks take a hit on losses after undertaking risky assets.  This is worth mentioning here because the main protagonist, Om Shastri (Rajat Kapoor), gets tossed around like a risky asset from Lewis’s book. What’s more, Shastri gets passed around regardless of his imminent bankruptcy. You see, the gangsters in “Phas Gaye Re Obama” are accomplished traders, similar to Wall Street traders; they hide the obvious and let the receiving party bear the risks. As Wall Street traders always say: For every profit, there is a loss somewhere.

The plot revolves around Om Shastri. Shastri lives in the U.S. and has lost everything in the recent recession. Struggling to keep up with monthly mortgage payments, Shastri has thirty days to come up with $100,000, after which the bank will take possession of his house. He decides to travel to India to sell an old family house. Upon reaching the village, he is kidnapped by local thugs who have been waiting for his arrival for the past seven years. The financial situation is not ideal for the thugs, and the recession has affected their business as well. They have no money and food; they have lost the respect of their fellow gangsters; and their kidnapping business has plummeted. Shastri is their only hope of getting rich. What follows after the kidnapping is a series of comic situations with several gangs and their continuous pursuit of supposedly wealthy Shastri.

“Phas Gaye Re Obama” succeeds as a comedy because it deals with Shastri’s real-life scenario that is convincingly relatable. Moreover, the film is utterly realistic. The interaction among local gangsters, their dialogue delivery mimicing the local dialect, their behavior, their operational mind set, and their recourse in tricky situations are all faithfully represented. The writers have naturally created the comedy moments without forcing it in any scenes.

Director Subhash Kapoor should be credited for ensuring controlled performances from his cast; you don’t see factors forcing themselves to make us laugh. Rajat Kapoor (“Monsoon Wedding”) perfectly represents the state of a bankrupt businessman whose world is turned upside down with the recession. In almost every scene he is in, we feel his anxiety and helplessness. But even under pressure, Shastri is a brilliant thinker, a trait that made him into a successful businessman.  His ability to think on his feet almost outwits the gangsters with a grand scheme. Finally, Neha Dhupia gives an impressive performance as the leader of female bandits.

Despite the positives, the movie has some minor flaws. The template used for trading Shastri from one gangster to the next quickly gets worn out. Once you figure out Shastri’s thought process, then the plot becomes too predictable. You can easily imagine the ending long before the movie is over. In addition, even though the movie offers a brisk ride, I felt it lagged after the halfway mark. The film could have benefited from additional trimming in the later half. Still, I wasn’t troubled with these shortcomings, as the positives certainly outweighed the negatives in this case. I was thoroughly amused by the characters and their situations.

“Phas Gaye Re Obama” is an entertaining comedy with a plausible scenario that features naturalistic performances. The film evokes the right responses from the audience in creating a satire against the backdrop of the global recession. Indeed, “Phas Gaye Re Obama” is a nice addition to the parallel Bollywood cinema and is definitely one of the best movies of 2010.

Note: The movie will be released in the U.S. by Warner Bros. as “With Love to Obama.”