They probably thought they had another American Desi on their hands. Unfortunately, Green Card Fever was pronounced DOA (dead on arrival) when it released August 22 in the US. 

Director Bala Rajasekharuni's Green Card Fever joins several other films that followed Piyush Dinkar Pandya's American Desi over the last 12 months, but failed to duplicate at least a decent part of Desi's $1 million gross in North America.

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The movie stars the principals of American Desi, Deep Katdare and Purva Bedi.

It took a paltry $67,529 from 18 theatres in its first weekend. By week 2, it was mostly off the box office radar.

The film is unlikely to have had a budget of even $250,000. Written and directed by Rajasekharuni, Green Card Fever deals with a subject many immigrants are familiar with: how desperate people are to get their green card.

A few young men decide to stay back in America when their cultural exchange visit is about to end. Like many immigrant stories, their stories are also filled with incidents of crass exploitation and insensitivity by people who, at one time, might have been struggling immigrants themselves.

The situation for one young immigrant Murali (Vikram Dasu) seems redeemable when he befriends a rich desi girl (Purva Bedi, left, below). But unless he has some status -- and at least a green card -- she won't have him.

Murali goes to a shark of an immigration attorney who happens to be Chinese. His more honest colleague (Katdare) would like to see Murali get honest counselling. This is one of the film's bad touches. Surely there must be some desi immigration attorneys who are also sharks.

The film lacks interesting situations and insights. Though it has fairly decent performances, it has very few moments that make our hearts ache and pulses rise.

There is nothing wrong with making films on desis in America every third month. But if they lack a compelling narrative, a fresh viewpoint, a well-written script and decent production values, they simply end up slaughtered at the box office.

There are at least three other desi experience movies in the works.

One of them, Flavors, directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, has some sharply observed and intriguing sequences. One of the better received films at the recent Asian American International Film Festival in New York, it also received an encouraging review from the influential trade publication Variety.

But when several indifferently made films like Green Card Fever give the genre a bad name, the more promising films could suffer at the box office.

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