Obama ‘trapped’ by Bollywood kidnap comedy

Bollywood makes comedy kidnap movie whose plot is woven around Obama's efforts to put US economy back on track.

MUMBAI: Ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit to India next month, Bollywood has come up with a comedy kidnap movie whose plot is woven around the president’s efforts to put the US economy back on track.

Phas Gaya Re Obama, which was made on a budget of $800,000, is a comic tale of small time gangsters in northern India, whose criminal activities are hit by the global economic downturn.

The movie, distributed by Warner Bros, is ready for release but will only hit screens on November 26, several weeks after Obama’s visit, which is scheduled for the beginning of the month.

Phas Gaya Re Obama has had to make way for a series of mega-budget movies which are traditionally released around the time of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which falls on November 5. Other films scheduled for release on November 5 include Vipul Shah’s Action Replayy (starring Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) and Golmaal 3 (whose large cast includes Kareena Kapoor and Ajay Devgn).

There is no actual Obama character in the film, which stars model-turned-actor Neha Dhupia and Rajat Kapoor.

The plot involves the abduction of a non-resident Indian who returns home to sell his ancestral property to repay debts in the United States after losing his job.

The gangsters look to Obama to revive the world economy and halt a sharp decline in their ransom earnings.

“It is a hilarious story of how the global recession affects kidnapping business of gangsters in a small town,” writer and director Subhash Kapoor told reporters in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Denzil Dias, deputy managing director of Warner Bros in India, promised “one of the most original and funniest scripts in recent times.”

President Obama has already made his ‘Bollywood debut’ of sorts. Christopher B Duncan played the president in My Name is Khan. Duncan has also enacted the president on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”.

Obama’s predecessor was also part of a Bollywood storyline. Brent Mendenhall played George W Bush in the 2009 film Mission Istaanbul, and was shown on board a replica of Air Force One, while en route to India. The film starred Zayed Khan and Vivek Oberoi and flopped at the box office.

Spoofs of US presidents are common in Pakistan, especially on political satire shows on television, which have a cast of actors playing Pakistani, Indian and American politicians.

With additional information by the News Desk

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2010.