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BE THE TIGER HUNTER PROFESSIONAL
Not only does this cheapen and weaken Sami’s story, but it does a disservice to the equally valid stories of Sami’s many roommates who have failed to infiltrate the American professional world many times over. While Sami faces some challenges, Khan sets him up for success from the very beginning, making any obstacles he confronts seem merely perfunctory. This is a far cry from Babu (Rizwan Manji), a valet who motivates himself by singing the theme to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and who aspires to own a “Dukes of Hazzard” car. But unlike Sami’s friends who toil as janitors and cab drivers, he is lucky enough to be hired as a draftsman, and he gets a guide to American management and office behavior from his co-worker, Alex (Jon Heder), who conveniently happens to be the middling, unambitious son of the company CEO. Early on, Sami takes to lying to his family back home and to Ruby herself over the phone about his employment situation. From the day he lands in Chicago, the race is on for Sami to become an employed engineer at a prosperous company, or else his chances of marrying Ruby are slim to none. The main reason behind Sami’s drive is Ruby (Karen David), his childhood crush who is touring America with her father to choose a well-established Indian man to marry (and whose character is never developed beyond this description). The script very clearly pits Sami and his roommates against the white engineers at the company where Sami is employed as a lowly draftsman this rag-tag group of immigrants find themselves in a race to beat those engineers to a functioning microwave prototype. In the way that a feel-good, innocuous comedy provides commentary, Khan’s film makes it clear that what holds Sami back – and the handful of other skilled immigrant with whom he shares an apartment, a single bed and one decent suit – is the fact that he doesn’t fit in with the white-washed world of American business. As he chases the American dream, Sami certainly bears the hallmarks of the American professional mindset: he is ambitious, single-minded and relentless. No, there is no tiger hunting in Chicago, but throughout the film, Sami remembers his awe-inspiring hero of a father who killed a tiger that was terrorizing their small village and whose reputation will forever be what Sami measures himself against. With such a familiar story, the most confusing aspect of The Tiger Hunter is its title.
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But although there is certainly truth to this struggle, Khan brings little detail to her story, co-written with Sameer Asad Gardezi, leaving viewers with shells of characters and obligatory ’70s references.
BE THE TIGER HUNTER TV
In line with TV comedies like “Fresh Off the Boat,” the film presents the fish-out-of-water tale of an Indian engineer, Sami Malik (Danny Pudi), who struggles to find professional work once he arrives in Chicago, a common occurrence even for skilled immigrants and one that, in part, draws on the experience of Khan’s father. Director Lena Khan’s debut feature The Tiger Hunter, a comedy about the immigrant experience in America, garners some laughs but ultimately relies too heavily on its kitschy ’70s setting and one-dimensional characters.