Is anyone a fan of NBC‘s Thursday night comedy Outsourced? While I’m not a huge fan of the show, I do enjoy it enough to tune in every week. So I was extremely surprised to find out that this TV show was actually a spin-off of a 2006 award winning Independent film with the same title. Check the break for details.

I stumbled across Outsourced (the movie) by accident the other night while browsing through the Independent Film section on Netflix. I had just finished watching NBC‘s version of Outsourced which had been stacking up on the DVR. The last episode I watched was a funny one, so I was not happy being forced to wait another week for more. Running out of things on the DVR to watch, I turned to my new favorite source of entertainment, Netflix. This is where I unintentionally found the 2006 motion picture version. I was actually quiet surprised by what I saw.

The film follows Todd Anderson (Josh Hamilton), a manager for a telephone call center, who one day finds out that his whole department is being outsourced to India. Needing someone to train his successor, Todd is forced to move to India and help with the transition.  After arriving he meets the new manager-in-training Puro (Asif Basra). Todd, wanting nothing more than to be back home in America, struggles to accept and understand this new culture until an unexpected trip with co-worker Asha (Ayesha Dharker) shows him that taking a closer look and embracing India can be a life changing experience.

While the NBC series takes a more comedic approach, the film really brings us into the story and the beautiful country of India. Don’t get me wrong, there are still laughs in the film, but it is more of a journey towards self/cultural discovery rather than a straight up comedy. The movie and the series do have a few things in common (some of the characters, one or two story lines, etc.) but they don’t follow each other very much. If you are a fan of the series you’ll more than likely enjoy the film, but know that the actors are played by different people.

I strongly recommend this to anyone wanting to enjoy a movie that is a bit different from the standard string of movies being released lately. Outsourced is a down to earth feel good story that really makes you think and open up to what you are seeing. Just writing this article and thinking about it makes me want to watch it again (which I probably will end up doing later today). Outsourced was directed by John Jeffcoat (who now writes for the NBC series) and it has won over 16 Film Festival awards all over the world. Definitely check out this film out if you get the chance, you won’t regret it!

Netflix This: Outsourced

What did you think? Do you prefer the movie or the series?