Director: Andy De Emmony
Writer: Ayub Khan-Din (Screenplay)
Starring: Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Jimi Mistry, Vijay Raaz, Ila Arun, Aqib Khan, Emil Marwa
Plot: An immigrant father decides to take his truant son back to the old country.
Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: West is West starts when George (Puri) has seen his children all move on with their lives in England, moving away from their Pakistani backgrounds, he sees his youngster son Sajid (Khan) looking to follow those steps. George decides he wants to teach Sajid a lesson by taking him back to Punjab, to help George’s first son Maneer (Marwa) find a wife.
Sajid does struggle to adapt to life in Pakistan, where the culture isn’t anything, he is used to, but once he is left to discover parts of the country along, he will find not everything is as different as he first thought, but it isn’t just Sajid learning a lesson, George must learn an important on to.
Thoughts on West is West
Thoughts – West is West is the follow up to East is East, with George and Ella returning with the youngster son Sajid and eldest son Maneer, as they look to learn more about the Pakistani roots, with George taking a walk down memory lane and Sajid needing to learn about his family’s past, instead of only understanding the English way of life. This story does spin what we learned in the first, where George had to learn to accept the English way of life, the same thing he chose, now he wants to at least offer the Pakistani point of view to one of his children before it is too late. The story doesn’t have the full level of heart the first one, as we don’t see or hear much about the rest of the children. The performances do work well, with Aqib Khan being the youngest member does get most of the laughs within the film and the rest of the cast doing everything they need to. This is one of the more enjoyable sequels even if it doesn’t hit the heights of the original.
Final Thoughts – West is West is an enjoyable sequel with a different style of laughs.
