Politics of Love

Of late Hollywood and Bollywood have been performing a strange dance. Big name Hollywood studios have signed contracts with Bollywood studios to produce films together and actors from both the industries are flying 10,000 miles to act in films produced by their opposites in the other continent. The difference is that while in most cases the exports from Hollywood have been grade B actors (Josh Hamilton in "Outsourced") and comedians past their prime (Chris Kattan in "Bollywood Hero"), the movement in the other direction is of supposedly grade A actors (Aishwarya Rai in "The Mistress of Spices"). Regardless, they have one thing in common- they manage to find mediocre projects and cannot rise above the material. Take for example of Mallika Sherawat, a "hot" actress from Hindi films, in this film. The film is based on a lame and worn idea of how opposites attract, made into an unfunny comedy. Ms. Sherawat is as bad as the material. She cannot even jog convincingly, let alone show any conflict about falling in love with a man who is politically against what she stands for. The simple irony of a black man trying to defeat the first black man running for President on a major party ticket, doesn't seem to occur to anyone in the film! The only good thing about Ms. Sherawat's performance is that it is no worse than that of her fellow actors in the film. All appear to be amateurs. It goes to show that the equation- Speaking English plus acting in Bollywood films equals being a Hollywood actress- does not compute. Whose hare-brained idea was this? How many such lousy half-Indian complete duds are going to be made?