The President Is Coming

A work of satire, The President Is Coming is unusual and more than just the much touted George W Bush visit to India. It veers off the traditional track and is packed with steoreotyped characters, each one driven by their own selfish desires, put through ridiculous and over the top tests that act as a deciding factor. The reward is a handshake with the notorious US President.

The movie features actual footage of Bush’s visit to India in 2006 as it mocks the media frenzy, the Presidential snore, the Presidential menu etc.

The face of New India, who is it going to be???  Samantha (Shernaz Patel) dressed in a power suit is completely believable as the ambitious slash bitchy slash kleptomaniac CEO of the PR agency that has landed the prestigious project. Ritu, her assistant, is a doormat. The six finalists are Maya Rao (Konkana Sen), who is brilliant as the ruthless Bengali novelist who exploits the other contestants’ Achilles’ Heels without batting an eyelid to get to Bush whom she openly detests. Archana Kapoor (Ira Dubey) is the Paris Hilton of India except darker – “a slut like a whore type” as Ajay puts it; Rohit Seth (Vivek Gomber) is an Americanised accent trainer from Gurgaon who thinks Hindustani Classical sounds like a cat being murdered; Ajay Kalekar (Satchit Puranik) , a social worker, from Nagpur is a racist and a chauvinist who can say fuck; Ramesh S (Namit Das) is a lusty software geek from Bangalore, reads Cosmopolitan and is looking for “some HBO type of fun”; Kapil Dev (Anand Tiwari) from Mumbai eats, breathes and lives the stock market,  believes Dow Jones is the capital of USA and is willing to buy Maya if only she were stock.

And what happens when they come together? Bribery, sex tapes, some maar-peet, homosexuality and even love happens!

The tests are hilarious and silly like a talent contest, recognizing American faces (Osama Bin Laden tops the list!), a physical endurance and speech round where they strike an animal pose and spout infamous Bushisms and Body Flexibility that has a good dose of Elvis the Pelvis tilts.

The laughs taper off as the story goes on. If you make room for some absurdity, predictability and a corny scene or two, it is great for laidback viewing. And if you want to delve deeper, it is nicely layered.