outsourced Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Although he often gets work in front of the screen, Hank Azaria is best known in the entertainment industry for voicing multiple characters on The Simpsons. Now, he's going to continue his behind-the-scenes status by directing his first feature, a comedy called Outsourced (not to be confused with the Outsourced that played at TIFF).

The movie, written by Timothy Dowling, is about two guys who are laid off when the factory they work for relocates to Mexico. The plot follows the pair as they travel south of the border to get their jobs back. It kinda sounds like an inverse of Ron Howard's Gung Ho, but with presumably more racist road tripping and less cultural commentary (I think that was Howard's intention, anyway).

A few years ago a comedy about outsourced labor might have been more timely, but I guess the issue still exists, and a film about outsourcing will still be topical. Besides, a modern comedy, especially one sold originally as a vehicle for Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, isn't likely to be about the issues. Right? Comedies these days are either dumbed down satire or dumbered down satire (don't get me wrong, both examples are still funny), but rarely are they really about anything of social importance. But I guess it is too hard to mix the funny and the serious.

If you've been paying attention to the news over the past several years, you've heard the term "outsourced" -- the phenomena of companies taking jobs in the United States and transitioning entire divisions to countries like India, where they can pay a fraction of the payroll and overhead to get the same job done. In Outsourced, directed by John Jeffcoat, Todd (Josh Hamilton), a customer service manager, finds himself in the odd position of being sent to India to train his replacement, after the order fulfillment division of his company is outsourced there. It's nothing personal, says his manager, Dave (Matt Smith, who perfectly deadpans the role of the ruthless boss). The added irony is that the company Todd works for sells kitschy bits of Americana -- plaster of paris bald eagles to farmers in the heartland, "cheesehead" hats to folks in Wisconsin -- and that their customers will now be purchasing their American pride collectibles through workers sitting at desks half a world away.