Amar Akbar & Tony

Brilliant story. That is the first thing you take home at the end of the night. Then you realise the characters were well written: funny, vulnerable and lovable. You wanted the three title roles to finish on top, you cared.

The style was a brave mix of British comedy, indulgent Bollywood and an all new dish of Malhotra (The guy who wrote and directed it). The laugh out loud moments were great. Opening night at the restaurant was cringe worthy, hilarious and heartwarming all at the same time.

All in all a great watch.

Tibey

I wouldn't say this film is awful in the sense of '1 out of 10' on IMDb... but it goes up there with 'pretty rubbish'

Now, the first 20 minutes or so seems promising... There was comedic elements to it and I thought "hmm, this could go somewhere"

Unfortunately though after around 25 minutes - it just drops. The jokes aren't funny, it has far too many story lines to focus on and I would also say it's possibly quite borderline racist - there's constant reference to 'Tony' as 'whiteboy' and although you can tell that the intention behind the film is to demonstrate 'liberal' British Asian attitudes, it overdoes it - and gives off the opposite to the desired effect.

The acting skills were abysmal for some of the characters - watch the film and you will see who I'm on about.

Overall - would I recommend watching it?

No, I wish I had followed my gut instinct and walked out instead of clinging to hope that it will get better... Only for the first 20 minutes or so of the film am I giving it a 3/10... the rest - it goes from 2.5/10 to 2.0/10 to the very end... 1.2/10!

When watching this film, I think it helps if you have some experience of multicultural Britain. Some of the story won't make much sense to people outside the UK without it.

If only in its title the film pays homage to the Bollywood film of the 70s "Amar Akbar and Anthony." In this British film, the disperate religious allegiances of the lead characters is referenced but not the focus. Instead the themes are about the clash of traditional Indian values with contemporary British ones.

How these issues are resolved is what drives the story line. The film does some of this well but in other areas it seems as if this is still a work in progress, but then perhaps that reflects the reality of Anglo/Indian life?

The three leads are well played: Rez Kempton as Amar is particularly good. Martin Delaney plays the "culturally clumsy puppy eager to please" well. Some of the performances from supports could have been better.

Firstly the screen writing: The film had no coherent storyline, jumping from comedy to tragedy to drama without any transitions and any attempt at laying the character backgrounds. I was left confused at the end: what was the film trying to show? The direction was mediocre, not a single scene stands out, whereas a few scenes stand out as failed attempts to inject some style into the otherwise turgid proceedings. SOme key scenes were very very badly done. In the scene when one of the protagonists of the film is reunited with his friend after a tragic few years, the director took the easy way out and completely ignored the potential to finally develop the characters.

The acting was a range- the one guy who stood out for me was Tony, his comedic timing and delivery was the saving grace. Karen David was the other extreme, very bad. The rest of the cast were passable to good.

But they are not the ones who let this cringe-worthy attempt at entertainment down- the blame must lie squarely with the director. No vision, no character development, just a hotchpotch of stereotypes shamelessly vomited under the banner of "feelgood". Sadly, this was as feel-sick as it gets.

Now granted the movies premise is that 3 religions can get along great is a good thing. I don't know how real life this is but i wasn't too concerned. The movie is very dramatic and protests honor killings. In the guise of attractive middle eastern people there is a story line that we should just all just get along.