West is West

YOU WOULD BE hard-pressed to describe West Is West, a belated sequel to Damien O'Donnell's East Is East(1999), as a good film. The picture is schematic, sentimental and more than a little patronising in its depiction of Pakistani society. Indeed, if somebody of Asian descent (Ayub Khan-Din is back behind the keyboard) hadn't written the thing, it would never have made it past the thought police. Still, it just about gets by on good will. It's as hard to despise as it is to adore.

Four years have passed since the events in East Is East. George Khan (the reliably excellent Om Puri) continues to run his fish-and- chip shop in racially mixed Salford. Most of his attention – and fury – is now focused on Sajid (Aqib Khan), his youngest son.

Both ignorant and disdainful of his Pakistan background, Sajid comes across as an archetypal English child of the 1970s. He swears. He snorts. The final outrage comes when, in a moment of unthinking rebellion, he calls Dad, whose wife is white, a “Paki”. The patriarch, in need of a bride for an elder son, decides to take the lad back to the home country.

Some of what follows is toe- curling. The explicit allusions to Rudyard Kipling's Kimdo not excuse the film-makers' decision to include a preposterously drawn old sage who, always at home to a banal aphorism, connects Sajid to his spiritual side. The boy's eventual reconciliation between his duelling heritages is as inevitable as it is trite.

Relief does come when Sajid’s mum (the indomitable Linda Bassett) turns up to confront the first wife that George left behind. Hearty, salty and slightly pathetic, Basset brings a sincerity that adds comic weight to the film’s efficient final act.

Still, it's hard to approach a projected third film with any great enthusiasm. Aside from other worries, they will, presumably, be stuck with East Is West(or West Is East) as an unwieldy title. Not a happy thought.