Four Samosas

Two star-crossed lovers. One break-up. Three years of pining about it, at least on the part of would-be rap star Vinny (Venk Potula). Four friends who conspire to steal his ex-girlfriend’s dowry from her father’s supermarket so that she won’t be able to marry someone else. 20 minutes’ worth of plot stretched over 80. Starting with the hoary old ‘However did I find myself in this wacky situation?’ set-up, this is very much filmmaking by the numbers. The only truly remarkable thing about it is how a film which works really hard to mine the idiosyncrasies of its setting, in an Indian immigrant community, could be so thoroughly, unrelentingly Californian.

It’s a sweet little film at heart, more Peshwari naan than spicy samosa, and if you’re looking to while away an hour and a bit without making too many demands on your brain, you could do a lot worse. The characters – even the bad guys – are amiable, the stakes reassuringly low. Vinny doesn’t see it that way, of course, but nobody else takes his romantic yearnings seriously after all this time. Rina (Summer Bishil), the ex in question, says that if he wanted them to stay together forever then he should have done something about it. This is part of what inspires him to action, with even stupid action at least offering the possibility of change.

The second feature from director Ravi Kapoor (who has had a much lengthier career as an actor but appears only briefly here), Four Samosas feels cobbled together. It’s unevenly paced and some of the jokes fall flat due to a lack on confidence on the part of the actors. There is a lot of community-focused humour, however, which is likely to be warmly received in the US where there is very little Indian representation onscreen. Vinny’s friend Zak (Nirvan Patnaik) dreams of becoming a Bollywood star, which enables the film to appeal to fans of Bollywood fare even as it spoofs it. The presence of young revolutionaries and a dance-off marry the traditional Indian and Californian elements nicely, as does the talent show which assorted characters are working towards in a backdrop to the heist.

Not a great deal more can be said about this, as it runs along pretty much exactly the lines you’d expect, and in an international context it’s rather less effective. A post-credits sequence which has nothing to offer but imitation emphasises the problem. Nevertheless, for those from a very particular cultural milieu who want to see characters they can relate to onscreen, it is bound to have some appeal. There is the potential here for something which might be more successful as a series, and it has heart.