The Foreigner

"The Foreigner" is an Indian live action short film from 2017 that runs for slightly over 16 minutes and was written and directed by Ram Gopal Varma who has been making movies since the later 1980s already. Still looking at how this one we got here ahs racked up millions and millions of views on Youtube since the filmmaker uploaded it, it is despite the length probably among his most-seen, even if the rating count here on imdb does not reflact the popularity. It is the story of a young and really attractive woman who moved from abroad to India (that's why the film is also a mix of English and Indian) and the 4 nerds who drool over her. One is a plumber and another is a carpenter and in the end all four of them end up in her apartment pretending to be handymen who fix stuff. But as they are just sitting there, the woman quickly realizes something is wrong especially when one of the gang starts taking to her about bed and slips. You never really know if they are dangerous or harmless. The soundtrack sure sounds dramatic, but these four really just seem like fools who are really incompetent with women. Until they actually make a plan to abduct her by force. So we see her get attacked by masked men and she sure knows how to fight back, but the plot twist is that these four are not our "heroes", which admittedly does not come as too much of a surprise because they are even too dumb to put on masks when they come to her apartment to commit their crime. Still, coincidence helps them out and actually they come this very moment to save her from the other quartet of crooks who got beat up pretty much by the chick. Oh well, this film is not a hymn to Indian men, that much is safe. But it somewhat is to Caucasian (is she?) women looking at how she can defend herself and also how stunning she looks. Lets not go into detail about all the suggestive shots of her in underwear. It's hard to make a statement for these, but even harder to make one against these as a heterosexual male. Acting is okay by everybody, but nothing or nobody really stands out. I think that is all, it was an entertaining little movie and a bit of a pity the cast list looks so poor for this one. They all deserve to be mentioned. For me, it is a thumbs-up all in all, also because you could never be really sure which direction the film is heading comedy or drama. Watch it!