Derek Winnert

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This article was written on 22 Jun 2018, and is filled under Reviews.

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Eaten by Lions *** (2018, Antonio Aakeel, Jack Carroll, Asim Chaudhry, Johnny Vegas) – Movie Review

Eaten by Lions: Good script, good performances. Likeable, charming and funny.

Co-writer/ director Jason Wingard’s confident contemporary multicultural comedy Eaten by Lions has a good script and good performances. It is likeable, charming and funny almost non-stop throughout.

Antonio Aakeel and Jack Carroll star as teenage half brothers Omar and Pete lose their beloved Gran, who has brought them up (their parents were eaten by lions), and are dumped on a couple of uncaring relatives, Ellen (Vicki Pepperdine and Ken (Kevin Eldon). They break free and set off for Blackpool in search of Omar’s real father, confronting the man they suppose is him, Saftar (Darshan Jariwala), on the day of his large, eccentric Asian family daughter’s engagement party.

Antonio Aakeel and Jack Carroll in Eaten by Lions.

They lose their stuff in the sea, but they are helped by a weird fortune teller (Tom Binns) on the pier, and Omar is befriended by a weird girl, Amy (Sarah Hoare), who lands them free accommodation at the guest house of weird Ray (Johnny Vegas), obviously a cousin of Uncle Monty in Withnail & I. Pete catches the eye of the Asian family’s youngest daughter, who is apparently mute. [Spoiler alert] The boys find the real father in Irfan (Asim Chaudhry), a wastrel ne’er-so-well, who has had a one-week stand with their mother.

It mixes a heart-warming journey of self-discovery for both boys with sharp and current comedy to very considerable success – an extremely tricky feat to pull off. It has to be said that some of the comedy and some of the performances are of the broad TV sitcom kind, and some of the characters are old-fashioned stereotypes.

Not asked to be truthful, just funny, Binns, Vegas, Chaudhry and Pepperdine really push it, and they are funny. Vegas’s aggressively leering turn could seem dodgy, maybe homophobic, maybe just harmlessly, ridiculously funny. But Aakeel and Carroll keep it grounded in warmth and reality. It is easy to believe in their true brothers for life friendship, and warm to it.

Johnny Vegas and Jack Carroll in Eaten by Lions.

Eaten by Lions looks good too, with cinematographer Matt North making the most of the Blackpool, Bradford and Manchester locations. It captures a flavour of these places today, which could be a bit of an eye-opener for London audiences. The locations add a reality check to the film, helping to keep David Isaac and Jason Wingard’s screenplay anchored.

But the film is all about Omar and Pete, and Aakeel and Carroll play them with energy, spirit and grace.

Eaten by Lions had its world premiere on 21 June 2018 at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and it premiered in London at the London Indian Film Festival on 25 and 27 June 2018. Its UK release is 29 March 2019.

Twitter: @EatenbyLionsUK

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

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