Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)An enjoyable romantic comedy bringing together Hollywood and Bollywood. Featuring beautiful cinematic shots of San Francisco and areas throughout India, an enjoyable storyline with a good dose of humor and wit. Shriya Saran just shines on this film!
The film directed by James Dodson ("Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil") and written by Tracey Jackson ("Confessions of a Shopaholic") comes a heartwarming and fun storyline that focuses on two individuals in opposite ends of the world.
The first is advertising exec Granger Woodruff (Jesse Metcalfe) who is working on the latest advertising campaign with his co-worker Mike for a major worldwide hotel. Unfortunately, the advertising commercial they have developed so far seems like they are promoting some type of escort service. With his luck starting to run out, he pleads with hotel owner Kit Hawksin (Larry Miller) to give him some time to come up with a good campaign and if he doesn't like it, he and Mike will quite the advertising firm.
For Granger, he's used to these type of challenges but in his personal life, he likes to have fun and dates one of New York's most popular socialites Emory Banks (Sara Foster) but at the same time, messes around with other women.
The second character the film focuses on is Priya Sethi (Shriya Saran), a woman living in Mumbai, India who enjoys American pop culture and works at a call center for City One Bank. Priya goes by the name of Jennifer David and a person supposedly living in the US (despite working at an Indian Call Center). She's able to speak without her Indian accent and sound like an American perfectly and she calls up Granger Woodruff due to suspicious activity on his credit card. Each time Priya tries to call, Granger is either on a date or making love to his girlfriend but Priya manages to get through to him during a day that Granger is sick.
Granger with his flirtatious nature starts having conversations with Priya and suddenly the two start having "business" conversations which lead to personal conversations on the phone.
Priya who sees a photo of Granger on the Internet is just happy when she has these conversations with him but her co-worker reminds her to not get too close to the customer and also that she is engaged, or more like arranged to marry a guy named Vikram who she has no interest in but with family traditions and for her family, she must marry this man.
When Granger invites Jennifer to meet up in San Francisco for a business trip, Priya feels that before she gets married, she wants to have one experience and that is to go to San Francisco and meet with Granger as her call center persona Jennifer David.
Priya then leaves to San Francisco to the dismay of her parents and both are excited to meet each other. But things don't go as expected for Priya. Looking beautiful and all ready to meet Granger, Granger who is expecting Jennifer avoids Priya and starts asking each Caucasian woman if they are Jennifer. Feeling jilted, Priya goes back to her hotel and doesn't know why she bothered traveling to San Francisco.
As for Granger, he feels that Jennifer stood him up and while he heads to the same hotel that Priya is staying, the two accidentally run into each other. Granger then helps Priya and from that point on, the two develop some chemistry and they go out on a date in San Francisco.
After another date with Priya, Granger introduces her to hotel owner, Kit Hawkson who is just amazed by Priya's beauty and how warm she is during conversation and is so pleased that he invites Granger and Priya to his party and even gives Priya a room to stay in his hotel.
Granger, starts to see something special with Priya and the two go on more dates and have fun in their days together as they go throughout San Francisco and have fun.
What Priya doesn't know is that her demanding father Rajeev Sethi (Anupam Kher) and the entire family are just scared out of their wits that some American has captured his daughter's attention and may cause problems with her engagement and her family goes to San Francisco to find her.
With both Granger and Priya starting to feel the attraction towards each other, will Granger find out that Priya is actually Jennifer David? And will he find out the truth that he is engaged? And will Priya find out that Granger may be attached to another woman? Are their feelings for each other genuine?
"The Other End of the Line" is an enjoyable romantic comedy bringing together both Western and Indian culture and thus giving a twist of finding romance with a total opposite, but also someone that lives in another country. Love can sometimes be complex!
In fact, the film is the first collaboration between major Indian film production studio Adlabs and America's MGM. Also, the film was produced by Indian-American Ashock Amritraj and Patrick Aiello.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
"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 awesome cinematography in India and San Francisco and creating this romantic vibe throughout the film. If anything, I was amazed of how many location shots there were for this film. But overall, the film has quite a good number of beautiful moments. The only part of the film that was just too fake was the use of an ultra large full moon in different parts of the film that just looked quite fake but other than that, really good outdoor shots and the various colors really come through for the picture quality on 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 a good number of Indian music and thus giving the film a Bollywood type of feel but the music does set the mood for the overall film. Audio and music come clear from your front channel speakers.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Unfortunately, there are no special features which is a shame because I would love to have seen special features of behind-the-scenes shots in San Francisco, India and even deleted scenes or interviews. For a film that features talent shooting in both countries, it would have been great if they included something on the DVD but unfortunately, there aren't any special features.
JUDGMENT CALL:
I really enjoyed "The Other End of the Line". To tell you the truth, outside of "Passions" and "Desperate Housewives", I haven't been too familiar with Jesse Metcalfe's acting for the past five years. And the same goes for Shriya, she's absolutely beautiful and both talents really shined in this film.
What makes the film work is that there are no really over-the-top situations, just two people who found chemistry and enjoying their time in the city of San Francisco and again, I was pretty pleased by the acting and also how the cinematography really elevated the feel of romance throughout the film.
If anything, having Larry Miller (Kit Hawksin) known for his role in "Pretty Woman" (as the clothing salesperson in Rodeo Drive) calling the hotel operator "Mary Pat" and then a scene with "Pretty Woman" being played, I'm guessing that the film creator's wanted to create that magical vibe from the classic romantic comedy film with "The Other End of the Line".
I also enjoyed the humor of the film in regards to Anupam Kher as Priya's father Rajeev going crazy about his daughter leaving to America and seeing how far he and the family would go to find her. Also, just certain scenes of interaction between Granger and Priya. But then of course, there are serious moments as well. Knowing how an arranged marriage to a good (and wealthy) family can be good for the whole family and that a person should not think about their own personal happiness but their own entire family's happiness. Also, a scene where Granger looks to find Jennifer David and he just simply avoids Priya (being the only non-Caucasian woman standing at the bar and looking at him with happiness and hoping to get notice) and just asking every Caucasian woman.
As for the finding love via talking to someone on the call center, it's not as farfetched as it seemed as I know people who like to flirt and have conversations with the person on the other line, especially to find out if the individuals are actually living in the city that they are saying in the conversation. And also, those who managed to develop nearly daily conversations with the women they talk on the opposite end of the line during a service call. So, to me, this ever happening is not as farfetched as it would seem.
If anything, I was very surprised by the actual employee meetings/workshops on how people in foreign countries are trained to say names correctly and also learning about the cities of customers that they talk to. So, it was good to see a glimpse of how people at call centers in other countries get prepared to talk with those in the US.
Now with many scenes that I did enjoy, what didn't I enjoy about the film?
There are some parts of the storyline that I did have some problems with. There is a scene featuring Granger at his best friend's wedding ceremony and as he gives a speech, he stops and runs off leaving everyone at the wedding ceremony a bit surprised. That was a bit abrupt.
Also, there was something about the final end scene which was enjoyable but one of those things was a wee bit far-fetched but I'll give the director the benefit of the doubt on that one.
And of course, the biggest offender for me in the film was to see this superimposed digitally of a huge moon that they kept adding in a few scenes...Read more›
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