Review of Basmati Blues (2017) by Hothouse T — 11 Feb 2018

History is chock-full of examples of well-meaning American technocrats going to other countries to "help"... and in the process helping to destroy that country's culture and economy.

Here is a film that tackles that phenomenon head-on, but does so within the frothy and mirthful form of a rom-com musical. The results, bubbling with references to Kurt Vonnegut, Arundhati Roy, and Bollywood -- defy cookie-cutter expectations of the genre.

The entire Indian and American cast is all-in. In a just world this film would launch Utkarsh Ambudkar as a top Hollywood comic leading man. And in a just world, American technocrats would learn the lesson that it is perhaps better to simply embrace a foreign culture than to try to "save" it.