West is West

[cheekyweelassie]

I went to a test screening of this the other evening, so the finished film might be a bit different to what I saw. It's the sequel to the 1999 film East Is East, so that's a pretty long time to wait for a follow-up. I really enjoyed the original film, which was all about a dysfunctional family in 1970s Salford coping with their Pakistani father's strict ways. I found East Is East really funny, so I was looking forward to a good comedy in a similar fashion.

In this sequel, set only a couple of years after the original (with Status Quo riffs accompanying the opening scenes) the troublesome youngest son Sajid accompanies his father George to Pakistan to be "sorted out" (in the words of his father, again played by Om Puri). The director is different this time (Andy DeEmmony who has mostly done telly stuff before I think), but some of the original cast are the same. There is a very brief appearance at the beginning by Jimi Mistry but he is underused.

The idea is a good one, though nothing new - the culture shock of the young British boy going out to Pakistan and coping with traditional life. There was plenty of potential for comedy, but I was really surprised and disappointed by how few laughs there were. The father went out to Pakistan and saw his first family again for the first time in decades, and this was all quite heavy and laden with downbeat sceneswith his first wife and children. I felt the weightiness was out of step with expectations because I had seen the original film and was expecting this to be much lighter. There were some very funny set pieces, which I can't really explain too much without spoiling them (but think Brits abroad with too much spicy food and no indoor loo!). There were also some excellent one-liners which made me chuckle. But overall I couldn't really call this a comedy.

However, despite not being hugely funny, it didn't work as a drama for me either as I didn't like the characters very much or empathise with them so I didn't feel moved by any of the emotional scenes. The young boy just seemed to be a brat who swore a lot, so I didn't even feel all that sorry for him when he was being picked on or when he felt out of place in Pakistan. The father was a bit of a tyrant who didn't really explain why he'd left his first family or why he was so mean to his second bunch of kids. The original film was so long ago that I couldn't really remember the original characters such as the Mum or the elder brother, so there was no real connection with those characters either.

The acting was fine, but some of the heavier accents were difficult to understand at times which disrupted the flow of the film. There were also some rather messy plot jumps. We leap from Salford to Pakistan without any real build-up or explanation. We jump between George's soul-searching between his two families to a humourous search for a wife for Sajid's elder brother (those bits were funny), to a random dispute over a house. The ending was unsatisfying and felt like the filmmakers had got to 90 minutes and had to stop. They lost the comedy potential of following the family back in Salford again.

At the end of the film we were all given questionnaires to fill in about what we thought of it, and I expressed these views. I can't be the first person to make comments about some of these issues (such as difficult accents, the film not being funny enough and some confusing scenes) as these remarks were all specifically mentioned in the questionnaire. I hope they can work something out for the final cut.

This must all sound really negative. Oh dear. It wasn't a painful way to spend an hour and a half, but I guess the fact that I really enjoyed the original film made this feel all the more disappointing and possibly clouded my view than if I just watched it without the comedy expectations. My OH has never seen East Is East and enjoyed it much more than me (giving it 7/10). Me, I could only offer 5/10.

[cheekyweelassie]

Saw posters at the cinema for this today so I looked up the release date. It's out on Feb 25th.
I'd be interested to know whether they edited it much differently after the test screenings.
I would also imagine there to be free previews of this.

[raj101]

its a reverse of the other film , west comes to the east.

not really a laugh a minute but not bad, and i think it was worth making a sequel to see how things developed from the other film, that left a few strings unattached.

[kevinknapman]

Saw this last night and really enjoyed it. Perhaps not as funny as the first film with less emphasis on the culture clashes than I expected, but I also felt that the shifts between the comedy and the serious moments were less jarring than in the original. The acting was excellent and it would be interesting to see where they take the story next as a 3rd film is apparently being planned.

[Preston1990]

To see a trailer or rate this film, please click here »



Directed by Andy DeEmmony.
Starring: Om Puri, Aqib Khan, Linda Bassett, Ila Arun, Jimi Mistry.

Plot: Manchester, North of England, 1975. The now much diminished, but still claustrophobic and dysfunctional, Khan family continues to struggle for survival. Sajid, the youngest Khan, the runt of the litter, is deep in pubescent crisis under heavy assault both from his father's tyrannical insistence on Pakistani tradition, and from the fierce bullies in the schoolyard. So, in a last, desperate attempt to 'sort him out', his father decides to pack him off to Mrs Khan No 1 and family in the Punjab, the wife and daughters he had abandoned 35 years earlier. It is not long before Ella Khan (Mrs Khan No2) with a small entourage from Salford, England, swiftly follows to sort out the mess, past and present.

IMDB

Get free tickets on the forum for 15th Feb

Get free tickets on the forum for 20th Feb

[rawsalsa]

I thought East is East was an excellent film, I'm definitely looking forward to this. I do hope it is as good as the previous film.

[Beate]

Why is there no WIQ on the code for the 15th?

[erohit]

I thought East is East was an excellent film, I'm definitely looking forward to this. I do hope it is as good as the previous film.

Couldn't agree more. I too want to see this film but missed the free tickets

[Diane65]

I really want to see this film but I'm already out on the 2 dates available so hoping for more dates. I've seen the trailer and it looks like a good fun film.

[superhero]

There's still tickets available for West is West on the 20th Feb in London