Fridae

Talk about redundant, The Other End of the Line is one movie that's 5 years too late. Had this film been released when there was a big hoo-haa over American call centers being moved to faraway India for its much cheaper English-speaking workforce, it might have interested audiences.

But today, the story of a romance that starts with phonecalls between an American man in New York and an Indian woman in Mumbai just feels stale.

Jesse Metcalfe (of Desperate Housewives fame) plays a hip advertising guy who has problems with his credit card. When he calls his bank, a lovely Indian woman (Shriya Saran) in Mumbai picks up the phone to help. She calls herself "Jennifer David from San Francisco", and Jesse can't help but find her charming and eloquent.

Attraction burgeons over several phone calls, but Shriya eventually has to come clean and tell him who she really is�

To be fair, the lead actors are really quite charming. Jesse is gorgeous, as we all know, while Shriya is a delightful actress with a mega-watt smile. But not much else in this romantic comedy feels new or engaging. Tracey Jackson's script is too obvious, while James Dodson's direction is ham-handed.