{"id":610,"date":"2010-04-15T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2010\/04\/movie-review-loins-of-punjab-presents-2.html"},"modified":"2017-09-01T16:03:45","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T20:03:45","slug":"movie-review-loins-of-punjab-presents-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2010\/04\/movie-review-loins-of-punjab-presents-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review : Loins of Punjab presents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"Rating : Above average (3.8\/5)<\/b>
\nGenre<\/a> : Comedy<\/b>
\nYear<\/a> : 2007<\/b>
\nRunning time :\u00a01 hours 28 minutes<\/b>
\nDirector<\/a> : Manish Acharya<\/b>
\nCast : Shabana Azmi, Darshan Jariwala, Loveleen Mishra, Ayesha Dharker<\/b>
\nKid rating<\/a> : PG-13<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard this movie being hyped to the heavens. And it\u2019s been a while waiting for \u201cLoins of Punjab\u201d to release on DVD. It finally did this April. It\u2019s a little known movie, and seems like it\u2019s shot on a shoestring budget. There is one big star – Shabana Azmi, and a few other well known names like Darshan Jariwalla, Ayesha Dharker, Loveleen Mishra etc. But regardless of their star power, they all do well – acting is immaculate. The film is set in New Jersey, where a meat company \u201cLoins of Punjab\u201d has decided to arrange for a desi talent competition called Desi Idol.<\/p>\n

There are many contenders, and some of the main ones are smooth-talking socialite Rrita Ishaan Kapoor (Azmi), Priti Patel (Ishhita Sharma), Indophile Josh Cohen (Michael Raimondi), Punjabi rapper Turbanotorious BDG (Ajay Naidu), and American born wanna-be actress Saniya Rehman (Seema Rahmani). All contenders come from different backgrounds, and have different \u201cstories\u201d. Some have families supporting them like Preeti Patel with her large Gujrati parivar<\/em>, some have connections like Rrita Kapoor, some have supportive desi girlfriends like Josh, and some are in it just by themselves like Sania Rehman. The organizers themselves are a motley bunch, with a penchant for \u201cGipsy Kings\u201c music. In short, desipan<\/em> happens.<\/p>\n

When such chaos reigns, who will win and how ?<\/p>\n

Indians and those of Indian origin living in the US, have fashioned for themselves a little sub-culture which is uniquely \u201cdesi\u201d. Its not Indian, and it\u2019s not American. It\u2019s of uncles and aunties caught in the warp of time gone by, looking back at India with nostalgia, while bringing up kids who bring home American words and slang and philosophy on a daily basis. It\u2019s of Indian indirectness, demureness and purity (or the thought of them) warring with the forthright and WYSIWYG culture of the general American population. A few nods here and there, and a culture is formed out of the amalgamation of the two.\u00a0LOPP puts this desi culture out on display.<\/p>\n

The film is directed by Manish Acharya, and he does the whole desi scene really well. There\u2019s the heightened anticipation for everything Indian, be it cultural or not. There\u2019s the desi \u201ckeeping up with the Joneses\u201d theme. There\u2019s the desi leering and leching and the desi prejudices. There\u2019s Indian stretchable time and the overwrought speeches. There\u2019s the overbearing Gujju family, complete with coordinating T-shirts and banners to cheer on their family\u2019s cultural icon. There\u2019s the nudging and the winking, the eye-rolling and the tittering, the string-pulling and the one-upping (you know what I mean). Good old desi culture, yeah ? Yes, and then there\u2019s desi drama, music, dance, romance and plain laugh-out-loud moments. There\u2019s enough masala in here to keep me cooking a while.<\/p>\n

The acting is great. Shabana Azmi is so good, she\u2019s almost oozing nastiness with every smile. Ayesha \u201cpouty-lips\u201d Dharker is wonderful as Opama Menon trying to shield her good-hearted non-desi boyfriend from her prejudicial countrymen (and women). Loveleen Mishra (remember her<\/a> ?) is gorgeous as Alpa Patel, the seemingly constrained mother of a talented singer. Jameel Khan as Mr. Bokade was simply too lecherous for words – very well done indeed. Character development is good – I believed each of the characters except maybe Turbanotorious, who didn\u2019t seem like a genuine Sardar – bad casting call, maybe ?<\/p>\n

The film is written by Manish Acharya and Anuvab Pal, who\u2018s sense of humor I’m in awe of<\/a>. In this unique story they bring together conservative desi uncles and aunties together with bhangra rapping gay Sardars, to cite just one example. Yeah, imagine that ! Acharya, who provided a \u201cvoice of discussion\u201d in the animated \u201cSita sings the blues\u201d also makes an appearance in the film as Vikram Tejwani.<\/p>\n

\u201cLOPP\u201d is a smart little vignette of a film. If you are familiar with the desi community, you\u2019ll find yourself nodding in agreement at the stuff in the film, and smirking at the sly digs. The direction and screenplay while not remarkable, are adequate. And if I pick at it, there\u2019s nothing really wrong with this film. It\u2019s just a little . . . low-key, a little short on . . . oomph, and I would have wished for better production values. If you are looking for a decent little film however, especially if you are Indian born, or an NRI, this is it. Just don\u2019t get swayed by all the swash-buckling reviews out there; while it is good,\u00a0it just isn\u2018t all that.<\/p>\n

Kidwise<\/strong> : This film is almost clean, but contains a few scenes with some adult situations, and talk. An OK watch maybe, for older teens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : Above average (3.8\/5) Genre : Comedy Year : 2007 Running time :\u00a01 hours 28 minutes Director : Manish Acharya Cast : Shabana Azmi, Darshan Jariwala, Loveleen Mishra, Ayesha Dharker Kid rating : PG-13 I\u2019ve heard this movie being … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51,88,90,76,14,179,159,15,187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-51","category-88","category-all-netflix","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-hindi-movies-on-netflix","category-netflix-recommendations","category-recommended","category-whatwon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":3,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Above average (3.8\/5) Genre : Comedy Year : 2007 Running time :\u00a01 hours 28 minutes Director : Manish Acharya Cast : Shabana Azmi, Darshan Jariwala, Loveleen Mishra, Ayesha Dharker Kid rating : PG-13 I\u2019ve heard this movie being … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-9Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7370,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/7370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}