The film is a character study of (Parvez) Om Puri an immigrant taxi driver in a Yorkshire Town. Whilst his friends have become wealthy, he is still plying his trade. Like Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver) he seems a little isolated maybe even alienated, whilst dealing with the scummy strata of society. The late night drunks, drug addicts and those violent to prostitutes.He is not outwardly religious, drinks too much and is only source of pride is his son who is engaged to the daughter of a police inspector. The fact that she is white is not an issue for him and he does not notice that her father seems to be far from enthusiastic with this.Parvez in a sense is at home with the host society. You also feel that he has fallen out of lust with his middle aged wife although they have cordial relations.However he notices that his son has changed. Farid has ended his engagement, turning his back on what he views as a decadent society and mixes with a fundamentalist crowd.Its a clash of cultures which is an Everyman tale irregardless of culture of religion. The difference is here, its the older man that wants to integrate whilst the son rejects it.Parvez whilst driving a German businessman around becomes friendly with a prostitute and has relations with her. At the same time his son and his gang wants to drive prostitutes of the streets.At the end his relationship breaks down with his son and his son accuses of the father being a fanatic. His wife also suspects that he is being too friendly with prostitutes. Now he is left isolated.Hanif Kureshi based the story apparently on a family member who became a more devout Muslim. However you always have to take things with a pinch of salt when Kureshi makes such claims. However it does identify with religious fundamentalism in the light of the Rushdie affair from 1988 and the attraction of fundamentalism to the young.This is a thoughtful work from Kureshi who in his younger years was more prone to shock his audience to mask that the writing was not so good. He is helped here by the director doing his best with a low budget but the cast which includes Stellen Skarsgard and Rachel Griffiths are very good.

After hearing about the terrible London blasts, which happened just a few days ago, the first thing which came to my mind was this movie. I watched a few years ago and loved it. Doubtless, I don't agree with B24: this is not a comedy at all, and it's nothing to share with "East is East". This movie is extremely forward-looking, not only because it – somehow – anticipated the "Clash of Civilization", but also because it gives you an extremely good description of all the difficulties that the first generation of Western-born people have to face.The character has to face reality: he is sure that he will never be able to be a real British (Western) citizen: despite his father's efforts and open-mind, the guy is too young to realize that if you don't accept yourself first, you will hardly find out people ready to welcome you. This is why he finds it more convenient (and much easier) to be surrounded by other Pakistani people. Among all the characters, the portrait of the "Imam" is very good: he is shown as an hypocritical man, always ready to blame the West, but still living in the UK, where he can get anything he wants: women, sex, movies… all those same things that – he says – are supposed to represent our flaws. But perhaps these people must forget something: despite their words, we're not afraid!

This is a great movie. Om Puri is acting as fantastic as we can aspect by now. The story deals with Muslim fanatics, one of them being taxidriver Parvez' (Puri) son. Like Christian fanatics in the US the muslimbrothers in England express the love of their god with violence against nonbelievers such as hookers. But in the end the biggest sinner of all, the one that loves a prostitute and cheats on his wife, is the only person in the movie that seems to understand the meaning of love. The story is also the conflict between an integrated father and a son that answers with religious fanaticism to the western world that still sees black people as outsiders, regardless of how much they and their parents have become decent citizens. It reminded me a lot of East and East, because of Om Puri and the conflict between a father and his children. Only in that movie it was the father who was the fanatic. You can consider that comparison as a compliment.

While this film is superficially about East Indian immigrants in Yorkshire, its themes are universal. Anyone who is or is related to an immigrant should feel at home here.As far as religion goes, these characters could be Jewish or Christian as easily as Moslem. The mediaevalist/modernist conflict is the same. There's no reason why the audience for this film should be just a parochial one.Om Puri gives a brilliant and nuanced performance as the central character, the resilient Punjabi cab driver. Rachel Griffiths is very fine as always as his kindred spirit, a hooker, although her character here is a little more limited in scope than those she portrayed in "Muriel's Wedding" and especially "Hilary and Jackie". Stellan Skarsgård also steps into a pair of shoes a few sizes smaller than those he has worn in the past.Unheralded though it may have been, this is another thoughtful comedy-drama from Hanif Kureishi, author of "My Beautiful Laundrette" amongst others.