Grade: B-

Verdict: An uneven but energetic culture-clash movie.

Details: Starring Om Puri and Linda Bassett. Directed by Damien O'Donnell. Rated R for profanity and domestic violence. 1 hour, 36 minutes.

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Review: Rudyard Kipling said it first and said it better: "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."

Still, the British movie "East Is East," based on a semi-autobiographical play by Ayub Khan-Din, definitely has some things to recommend it--most notably an energized cast and a knowing sense of the sometimes comic, sometimes appalling fallout of culture clash.

Set in a working-class Manchester neighborhood in 1971, the film focuses on the sprawling Khan family, a mixed-race bunch with a Pakistani patriarch, a fish-and-chips English mom and seven kids who definitely identify with the exploding British pop culture that surrounds them. George Khan (Om Puri)--or "Genghis," as he's often called by his children--emigrated from his native Pakistan in the 1930s, leaving behind a first wife. His second wife, of almost 20 years, is Ella (Linda Bassett), a down-to-earth type who has essentially made her bed and doesn't mind lying in it, no matter how irrational George gets. Which, we learn early, can be pretty irrational.

George is like an ethnic Archie Bunker, temperamental and tyrannical and, worst of all, hypocritical. It's fine for him to marry an Englishwoman, but his sons must agree to arranged marriages with "Paki" girls. His humorously rebellious daughter must wear a sari on Sundays. And everyone--Ella excepted--is expected to attend the local mosque.

The movie begins with one such arranged marriage that doesn't go as arranged. From there, it proceeds via a series of vignettes--the discovery that their youngest, who buries himself in a "South Park"-style parka, has never been circumcised, or one son's taboo romance with the saucy blond daughter of a scowling British bigot who favors repatriation.

The main story, so to speak, doesn't kick in until about halfway through the movie. George, apparently having failed to learn his lesson, arranges for his next two sons to be married to the truly unattractive daughters of a wealthy Muslim butcher and his snobbish wife. Disasters of all sorts ensue.

Much of the time the movie is raucously comic, capturing the inherent hilariousness of a large family, full of independent-minded members, crowded into cramped quarters. There are also any number of rueful scenes that remind us of the insanity of prejudice.

Gazing soulfully into her beloved's eyes, the British blonde swears that she won't let his color come between them--and "it's not just because I love curry."

But "East Is East" has a couple of deep flaws. One is that, in trying to explore the evil of stereotypes, it often deals in stereotypes. The other is that the script turns on a virtual dime from good-natured comedy to savage domestic violence straight out of "Once Were Warriors." When a threatened and frustrated George starts beating up on Ella, the ugliness is disruptive and destructive to the film.

The saving grace is the cast--not just the gang of engaging unknowns who play the Khan brood, but most especially Puri, who suggests a deeply conflicted man underneath his bluster, and Bassett, who gives us a woman whose innate groundedness is being constantly tested. Ultimately, "East Is East" holds us despite its flaws, just as George holds Ella despite his flaws. The picture may stumble as it goes, but it keeps going--and keeps our attention.

— Eleanor Ringel, Cox News Service