Basmati Blues

"Basmati Blues" uses the campy style of a Bollywood musical to tell the story of romance, cultural convergence, and the independent farmer against the corporate mogul. It's a movie that's more about song, dance, color, images and production numbers than plot and character. It has an impassioned theme and rich visuals, but in every other way, it's two-dimensional.

An unadventurous genetic scientist, Linda (Brie Larson), removes her lab coat and steps away from her microscope - in fact, she steps all the way from New York over to India - to convince rural farmers to plant her new super-food, a nutritionally dense, pest-resistant rice. What she doesn't think to tell the farmers is that her new crop is not self-generating, and once they buy her rice they will be financially dependent on an American company called Mogil and ruled over by a smarmy super-villain (Donald Sutherland).

In India, she meets a poor farmer, Rajit (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who dreams of getting out of the rice field and into college. But he doesn't have the money to do so. As the couple's love/hate relationship progresses, things are complicated by a handsome diplomat (Saahil Sehgal) who also has a crush on Linda.

"Basmati Blues" is an American imitation of the Indian cinema's staple film genre. So it features masterful singing and dancing tied together with an outlandish plot - including a hero riding off to save the day on a white horse, the lovers deciding to have a romantic first kiss on railroad tracks as a speeding train rushes toward them, Tyne Daly in a supporting role, and a big Indian wedding appearing almost out of nowhere at the end. It's not Broadway and not Bollywood, but it tries to reflect a little of each. And since it's an homage to a stylization that's already artificial by American standards, it's superficiality to the power of two.

This Blu-ray contains a hysterical featurette in which Donald Sutherland admits that he didn't realize this movie was a musical until after he'd gotten himself into it. Also included: deleted scenes, a gallery, the trailer and an audio commentary.

"Basmati Blues"
Blu-ray
$24.99
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