CINEMA REVIEW: West Is West

It’s been 11 long years since East Is East rushed like a breath of fresh air through our cinemas, gathering a fistful of accolades on the way.

This much delayed sequel sees the Salford-based Khan family heading ‘home’ to its roots in the Punjab and discovering a somewhat uneasy truce between western and eastern cultures.

Set in 1976, five years on from the original film, the elder siblings have fled the dysfunctional Khan nest, leaving youngest son Sajid (Aqib Khan) at home in the Chippy with solid English mum Ella (Linda Bassett) and tyrannical Pakistani dad George ‘Ghenis’ Khan (Om Puri). Sajid is a snotty 13-year-old with a bad attitude and bad language and after one brush too many with the school authorities dad decides it is time for him to take his wayward son back to the Punjab in order to instil some discipline and good manners into the ungrateful wretch. Sajid is violently opposed to the idea and on arriving in Pakistan rebels at every opportunity even though his older, obedient brother Maneer (Emil Marwa), is on hand to offer unwanted advice.

Sajid just wants to go home but his father finds himself increasingly reluctant to leave. Once ensconced in his own country and in his original matrimonial home with Mrs Khan number 1 (Ila Arun) and the daughters he left behind 30 years before, George reverts to patriarchal overlord. Meanwhile, Sajid is discovering an alternative father figure in holy man Pir Naseem (Nadim Sawalha). It is only when Sajid fails to return to Salford in time for a new school term that Ella decides to take matters into her own hands and descends on the Punjab like a harpy dressed in a crimpeline lounge suit determined to sort her men folk out once and for all.

There are a lot of different aspects to the storyline — cultural differences, identity, abandonment, loyalty, pride — that are cursorily explored and then dropped without ever being properly resolved. This is mainly due to some really slapdash direction which seeks quick laughs over insight; a few witty words over anything more profound. Another problem is the character of Sajid, around whom much of the action revolves. He is awkward, dislikeable and far less interesting than many of the other characters. In fact, it is the wonderful Linda Bassett who holds much of the film together and when she disappears for the middle section of the movie, her absence is palpable.

Director De Emmony makes little of the distinct contrast between the greyness of Salford and the glorious colour and vibrancy of the Punjab and it is this lack of attention to detail, everything rendered in broad brush strokes rather than fine craftsmanship, that makes the film come across as a made for TV special rather than a fully-fledged cinematic experience. It never once matches the spark, originality and sheer joie-de-vivre of East Is East and although producer Leslee Udwin may say it is not just ‘a cynical sequel’, many people may feel that after a gap of over a decade it is an unnecessary one.