What happens when you only like one of the three friends or in this case Amar (Rez Kempton)? The other two are irritating Akbar (Sam Vincenti) & Tony (Martin Delaney). Well in Amar Akbar & Tony it’s all for one and one for all except it’s only one of them that takes the fall. By the end of the film you are left wondering why they remained friends for so long.
The opening scene could have been an opening from East is East and provides a brief overview: queue the bland 1980s and 1990s flashback scenes of a family from the Punjab arriving in England to set up the ubiquitous take-away – there’s a nutter, a hard man, a beautiful girl etc. As I watched the film unfold, it felt as if I was writing the script in real time and then came the unexpected twist. I was honestly shocked and the tempo of the film changed. It suddenly became interesting but that’s not to say engaging. There were a lot of characters and the script is riddled with stereotypes. Maybe the writer director, Atul Malhotra, was seeking to show a different representation of Asian culture and deal with controversial subject matter for that community: homosexuality, honour killings and that is admirable. However, at some point in the film the focus shifted and I wasn’t sure if it was still about the friendship between the three main protagonists or just a grittier, less fun version of East is East set in London and a decade later.
The outstanding performance is that of Amar (Rez Kempton) when the pivotal moment happens 10 minutes into the film he was mesmeric and certainly a name to watch out for in the future. Every time he entered the frame, he dominated the screen. There are well known faces that appear in the film, Nina Wadia and Meera Syal, but even they can’t save this riddle of clichés and poor jokes.
Amar Akbar & Tony receives its’ VOD release on 2 November.
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