West Is West is a 2010 British comedy-drama film directed by Andy DeEmmony and starring Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Aqib Khan, Ila Arun and Jimi Mistry. A sequel to the 1999 comedy film East Is East, it was written by Ayub Khan-Din and produced by Leslee Udwin for Assassin Films and BBC Films.
The film was first shown at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival on 12 September. It premiered at the BFI London Film Festival on 19 October 2010, followed by UK and Irish release on 25 February 2011. The first US showing was on 2 November 2010 at the South Asian International Film Festival, followed by several other US festivals. While it was released in Canada on 25 March 2011, it never received a US release.
Meanwhile, upon discovering George has withdrawn the family savings, Ella travels to Pakistan with her best friend Annie in tow. She is furious to discover her husband is building a house for his family there, and plans to take Sajid back to England with her, but he refuses to leave. During her stay, Ella fights with Basheera and her daughters, and refuses to give them access to the new house, but upon realising how alike they are the two women put their differences aside. Maneer and Neelam soon marry, and George for the first time in years begins to appreciate Ella as a wife who stood by him during hard times. The film ends with George and his England-based family returning home and Sajid finally proud of his Asian background, whilst George's chippy now serves Pakistani-style kebabs.
The film received mixed reviews. As of June 2020[update], the film holds a 64% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 25 reviews with an average rating of 5.37 out of 10.[6] Several reviewers noted that while the film still had the sense of humour of East Is East, it did not reach the level attained in the original. In his review for The Globe and Mail, Rick Groen noted the "sudden leaps into unabashed melodrama", saying that "When they fail, the hurlyburly gets annoying. But when they succeed, the result can be genuinely touching."[7]
Sukhdev Sandhu of The Daily Telegraph in his review described the soundtrack as "delightful".[8] Rediff reviewer Shaikh Ayaz, in his review, stated "The music is beautifully cherry-picked, mixing Sufi tunes with Punjabi folk music."[9] Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India, in her review, said that the "soulful music" of the movie was memorable.[10] Pankaj Sabnani of Glamsham also gave the music a thumbs up, saying "Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music is excellent and gels well with the film."[11] Daily Bhaskar review described the music as "soothing" and "situational".[12]
The Western typically takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, although some notable examples (e.g. the later Westerns of John Ford or Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, about an old contract killer) are more morally ambiguous. Westerns often stress the harshness and isolation of the wilderness, and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape. Western films generally have specific settings, such as isolated ranches, Native American villages, or small frontier towns with a saloon. Oftentimes, these settings appear deserted and without much structure. Apart from the wilderness, the saloon usually emphasizes that this is the Wild West; it is the place to go for music (raucous piano playing), women (often prostitutes), gambling (draw poker or five-card stud), drinking (beer, whiskey, or tequila if set in Mexico), brawling, and shooting. In some Westerns, where civilization has arrived, the town has a church, a general store, a bank, and a school; in others, where frontier rules still hold sway, it is, as Sergio Leone said, "where life has no value".
The American Film Institute defines Western films as those "set in the American West that [embody] the spirit, the struggle, and the demise of the new frontier".[12] Originally, these films were called "Wild West dramas", a reference to Wild West shows like Buffalo Bill Cody's.[13] The term "Western", used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article in Motion Picture World magazine.[13]
Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th-century popular Western fiction, and were firmly in place before film became a popular art form.[14][page needed] Western films commonly feature protagonists such as cowboys, gunslingers, and bounty hunters, who are often depicted as seminomadic wanderers who wear Stetson hats, bandannas, spurs, and buckskins, use revolvers or rifles as everyday tools of survival and as a means to settle disputes using "frontier justice". Protagonists ride between dusty towns and cattle ranches on their trusty steeds.[citation needed]
The period from 1940 to 1960 has been called the "Golden Age of the Western".[22] It is epitomized by the work of several prominent directors including Robert Aldrich, Budd Boetticher, Delmer Daves, John Ford, and others. Some of the popular films during this era include Apache (1954), Broken Arrow (1950), and My Darling Clementine (1946).[citation needed]
The changing popularity of the Western genre has influenced worldwide pop culture over time.[23][24] During the 1960s and 1970s, Spaghetti Westerns from Italy became popular worldwide; this was due to the success of Sergio Leone's storytelling method.[25][26] After having been previously pronounced dead, a resurgence of Westerns occurred during the 1990s with films such as Dances with Wolves (1990), Unforgiven (1992), and Geronimo (1993), as Westerns once again increased in popularity.[27][28]
AMC and Vince Gilligan's critically acclaimed Breaking Bad is a much more modern take on the western genre. Set in New Mexico from 2008 through 2013, it follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a chemistry teacher diagnosed with Stage III Lung Cancer who cooks and sells crystal meth to provide money for his family after he dies, while slowly growing further and further into the illicit drug market, eventually turning into a ruthless drug dealer and killer. While the show has scenes in a populated suburban neighborhood and nearby Albuquerque, much of the show takes place in the desert, where Walter often takes his RV car out into the open desert to cook his meth, and most action sequences occur in the desert, similar to old-fashioned western movies. The clash between the Wild West and modern technology like cars and cellphones, while also focusing primarily on being a Crime drama makes the show a unique spin on both genres. Walter's reliance on the desert environment makes the western-feel a pivotal role in the show, and would continue to be used in the spinoff series Better Call Saul.[35]
A number of visual artists focused their work on representations of the American Old West. American West-oriented art is sometimes referred to as "Western Art" by Americans. This relatively new category of art includes paintings, sculptures, and sometimes Native American crafts. Initially, subjects included exploration of the Western states and cowboy themes. Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell are two artists who captured the "Wild West" in paintings and sculpture.[37] After the death of Remington Richard Lorenz became the preeminent artist painting in the western genre.[38]
Being period drama pieces, both the Western and samurai genre influenced each other in style and themes throughout the years.[43] The Magnificent Seven was a remake of Akira Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai, and A Fistful of Dollars was a remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which itself was inspired by Red Harvest, an American detective novel by Dashiell Hammett.[44] Kurosawa was influenced by American Westerns and was a fan of the genre, most especially John Ford.[45][46]
Despite the Cold War, the Western was a strong influence on Eastern Bloc cinema, which had its own take on the genre, the so-called "Red Western" or "Ostern". Generally, these took two forms: either straight Westerns shot in the Eastern Bloc, or action films involving the Russian Revolution and civil war and the Basmachi rebellion.[citation needed]
Many elements of space-travel series and films borrow extensively from the conventions of the Western genre. This is particularly the case in the space Western subgenre of science fiction. Peter Hyams's Outland transferred the plot of High Noon to Io, moon of Jupiter. More recently, the space opera series Firefly used an explicitly Western theme for its portrayal of frontier worlds. Anime shows such as Cowboy Bebop, Trigun and Outlaw Star have been similar mixes of science-fiction and Western elements. The science fiction Western can be seen as a subgenre of either Westerns or science fiction. Elements of Western films can be found also in some films belonging essentially to other genres. For example, Kelly's Heroes is a war film, but its action and characters are Western-like.
Stephen King's The Dark Tower is a series of seven books that meshes themes of Westerns, high fantasy, science fiction, and horror. The protagonist Roland Deschain is a gunslinger whose image and personality are largely inspired by the Man with No Name from Sergio Leone's films. In addition, the superhero fantasy genre has been described as having been derived from the cowboy hero, only powered up to omnipotence in a primarily urban setting. The Western genre has been parodied on a number of occasions, famous examples being Support Your Local Sheriff!, Cat Ballou, Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, and Rustler's Rhapsody.[citation needed]
George Lucas's Star Wars films use many elements of a Western, and Lucas has said he intended for Star Wars to revitalize cinematic mythology, a part the Western once held. The Jedi, who take their name from Jidaigeki, are modeled after samurai, showing the influence of Kurosawa. The character Han Solo dressed like an archetypal gunslinger, and the Mos Eisley cantina is much like an Old West saloon.[47]
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