Film Reviews

West is West

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Linda Bassett
• Details: UK / 103mins (15A).

A needles sequel it may be, but not a totally unwelcome one. Where 1999's East Is East investigated identity, tradition and culture clash in a Pakistani/English family in 1970's Manchester, Andy DeEmmony's belated sequel finds that Damien O'Donnell's 1999 cult movie said all it had to say on the subject.
Set four years after the events of East Is East, time has seen all but one of the Khan children fly the coop. George (Puri) is determined that little Sajid (Khan) will not go the way his elder brothers and sisters did and forget about his Pakistani heritage. To that end, he takes Sajid back to Pakistan as he goes about arranging Maneer's (Marwa) marriage, who has been there a year without any luck in securing a bride. There, however, George runs into Basheera (Ila Arun), his first wife whom he abandoned 30 odd years before...
East Is East wrapped everything up nicely: George's tyrannical hold over his family and his myopic quest to instil old traditions in the new world had quietened. Everyone grew up and everyone learned something. The end. Writer Ayub Khan-Din, who wrote the original, returns here and he knows these characters inside-out, but in taking on this sequel chooses ignore how his original movie finished up - George has fallen back on his old ways and has learned nothing. He's still the same old 'bloody bastid' George; the forever-watchable Om 'half a cup' Puri works hard with what he's given but there's no new aspect he can bring to the character.
The family dynamic is gone: bar one scene with Tariq (Jimi Mistry), the Khan family, and the interplay between them that made East Is East so endearing, is lost and it's sorely missed. To fill the void, Khan-Din rustles up various characters from George's Pakistan family but they don't have the likeable factor that his Salford children had. Front and centre this time out, Aqib Khan's Sajid, taking over from Jordan Routledge, is at the petulant teenage age and seems determined to tell the whole world to 'f**k off' and this one-joke veers from slightly funny to outright irritating.
Despite West Is West's moments of humour, one would rather watch East Is East again.

Review by Gavin Burke