Loins of Punjab Presents

Details

Loins of Punjab Presents
Directed by Manish Acharya
Opens September 12, Quad Cinema

Related Content

• 100 & Single: Answering Questions On Adam Lambert's Historic Chart-Topping Album
  May 25, 2012
• 100 & Single: Buy An Adam Lambert Album, Strike A Tiny Blow For Gay Rights
  May 7, 2012
• Ruben Studdard
  February 1, 2012
• Kelly Clarkson's Seven Best Cover Songs
  November 2, 2011
• Underwhelmed And Overstimulated, Part The Sixth: Was 2011 The Best Year For Women In Music Ever?
  December 22, 2011

More About

• Manish Acharya
• Desi Idol
• American Idol

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

The zany incomprehensibility of the title should serve as fair warning of the quirkfest to come in neophyte filmmaker Manish Acharya's Loins of Punjab Presents. Ready to rock the South Asian community over the course of one weekend in New Jersey, "Desi Idol"—sponsored by the eponymous meat wholesalers—will bestow $25,000 and local prestige upon the winner of the talent competition. Imagining itself a stereotype-smashing, Bollywood-spirited send-up of American Idol culture, the movie is, in actuality, a by-the- numbers comedy in cross-cultural clothing. Not to suggest that the largely Indian cast is nothing to celebrate or that Acharya's attempt lacks heart: From the actress rejected by a casting agent looking for someone "more Indian," to the unemployed futures analyst whose job has been outsourced to India, to a turbaned rapper mistaken for a terrorist, each contestant's story elucidates the ethnic and national tensions regularly encountered by Indian-Americans. But the glibness of these explorations leaves little doubt that the director wants us to walk away with a case of the warm fuzzies rather than a deeper understanding of assimilation. When the cuddliness factor even extends to the characterization of an elderly white couple convinced that every brown-skinned person they meet might bomb the place, you know Punjab has issues that need resolving.