Starring Harbhajan Mann, Navjot Singh Sidhu, and Kimi Verma. In Punjabi with English subtitles. Rating not available.

Although Punjabi language films have caught on with diaspora audiences, one thing that they aren’t known for is subtlety. Mera Pind (My Home) exemplifies this as it tries too hard to be a social statement, a formulaic love story, and a commercial “masala” entertainment all at once.

Surrey-based Punjabi singer-turned-actor Harbhajan Mann stars as Himmat Singh, a fresh university grad who returns to his village with limited prospects other than farming
his family’s feudal land. He and his fellow graduates pound the pavement looking for suitable employment so that they can repay the loans their families took using their ancestral farmland as collateral. But they quickly find government jobs only come by paying bribes to corrupt officials. Himmat must also deal with rising family tensions over his lady love, Resham (Kimi Verma), and their desire for him to marry an American girl so that he won’t have to struggle in the wasteland of his village.

Director Manmohan Singh, who has also explored many of this film’s themes in his previous work, enlists former star cricketer and current Indian MP Navjot Singh Sidhu to play a Canadian who has returned to his village to set the youth straight by teaching them the hard-work ethic and entrepreneurial skills of people in the West.

Mann’s flat performance comes across as too demure and devoid of emotion, and Verma, as his underused heroine, is wasted in a meaningless subplot. Although the idealism of the film is laudable, it’s introduced in such a heavy-handed way, with long, irritating lectures that at times are laughable, that the film fails to capture the imagination.