Outsourced

"Outsourced" is a genial and charming fish-out-of-water tale about a young American telemarketer who learns that his job is being shipped overseas. To add insult to injury, the novelty company he works for has decided to send him to India to train his own replacement. The movie is a bit predictable and unoriginal at times, but only a complete curmudgeon could be totally immune to its spell.

Josh Hamilton is immensely likable as the nice-guy protagonist, and Ayesha Dharker is lovely and radiant as the freethinking co-worker with whom he has a clandestine dalliance. Indeed, all the actors are first-rate, and the striking settings and iridescent colors add to the movie's appeal.

Moreover, the culture clash aspects of the story are dealt with in droll and subtle terms, as the initially "superior" foreigner begins to loosen up and immerse himself in all that this strange and exotic world has to offer.

It's a dicey business trying to make a feel-good comedy out of a subject as controversial and serious as outsourcing, but writer/director John Jeffcoat somehow manages to pull it off.