My Son the Fanatic (1997)

Sadly Over-hyped

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

"My Son the Fanatic," writer Hanif Kureishi and director Udayan Prasad's 1997 film about Farid, an English-born Pakistani boy who becomes a devout Muslim who firebombs a brothel, is a train wreck. Its art is shoddy and its politics are repugnant. But Om Puri as Parvez, the taxi- driver father of the fanatic son, gives a performance that is solid gold. Rachel Griffiths, as a prostitute, is brilliant. Parvez (Om Puri) is a taxi driver in a depressed English mill town. He befriends Bettina (Griffiths) a prostitute. He works for a monstrous German sex tourist named S---t. Parvez's son, Farid, is engaged to the lovely Madeline Fingerhut, daughter of the chief of police. Farid breaks off his engagement and becomes the Muslim "fanatic" of the title. Parvez tries to stop his son's fanaticism. He also enters into an affair with Bettina, the prostitute, who loves him. "My Son the Fanatic" struggles to combine several disparate themes and subplots. It is never successful because it never probes deeply enough into any of its material. The film ends ambiguously; the viewer has no idea how any of the story strands will resolve themselves. The two most powerful features of the film, the only real reason to see the film, are Om Puri and Rachel Griffiths. They are very different and they are both powerhouses. Om Puri feels like a beating heart. He is totally believable, irresistibly lovable, and charismatic. Puri had smallpox when he was two and his face is cratered. These scars just make you stare at him all the more.Rachel Griffiths is perfect as Bettina, the stereotypical "hooker with a heart of gold." She's smart, and she's in pain. In spite of their age and culture differences, Parvez and Bettina's love is completely believable and poignant. It's clear that Parvez's wife Minoo is not providing him with passion, respect, or either emotional or physical intimacy. She calls him a "useless idiot," and at one point it appears she may leave him to go back to Pakistan. While Parvez resists his son's fanaticism, Minoo supports it. You really want to know – can a man fall in love with a prostitute? Parvez's friend Fizzy reminds him cruelly that Bettina has been penetrated by thousands of men. Could Parvez ever get over that? Could Parvez and Minoo separate in a way that worked for them both and spared them both great pain? Could Bettina settle down with one man? Could the couple survive the disdain of respectable people? Again, the chemistry between Parvez and Bettina is so compelling you really want the film to attempt to answer any of these questions. In fact, it answers none. Sadly, Parvez and Bettina are merely Hanif Kureishi's little wind-up toys. He has zero respect or affection for his own characters. Kureishi created Parvez and Bettina just to make his own, repugnant, political point. They are agitprop. With the exception of Madeline Fingerhut, who is on screen for about 120 seconds, every last Westerner the innocent Muslims encounter is a racist, a prostitute, or a monster. The thrust of "My Son the Fanatic" is this. Innocent, decent Pakistani Muslims immigrate to England and are confronted by orgies, naked women selling their bodies in the streets, racism, violence, and booze. The film is graphic and disgusting. There are gratuitous scenes of Bettina being used by her johns. The German sex tourist S– is depicted abusing men and women and hosting orgies. There is no logic in this; this man is shown to be ridiculously wealthy. A sex tourist with that kind of money would not travel to some grim northern English mill town. S–-, the German sex tourist for whom Parvez works, is named after feces. He is utterly disgusting. There are graphic scenes of his exploitation of Bettina. Later, she is shown with bruises from his beatings. He also beats Parvez. When Parvez goes out, he is cruelly mocked by an English comedian. There is no other English life depicted in "My Son the Fanatic." Not a single English person is kind to children or animals. The English are all violent, sexually perverse, racist scum. Farid becomes a fanatic after Madeline's father is rude to him. "You are the only pig I've ever wanted to eat," Farid tells his future father-in-law. All this graphic perversion is thrust into the viewer's face to emphasize: innocent, decent Muslims are forced by Western ugliness to become terrorists.Okay, let's rejoin planet Earth, shall we? On May 21, 2013, the BBC reported on 54 separate child sex slave rings in England run by Pakistani men. The descriptions of the activities of these gangs are nightmarish. Western Civilization did not corrupt these men; their corruption was already installed. And as for the charge that racism forces otherwise innocent men to become fanatics; please see Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarneav, two beloved, funded, coddled, immigrants who arrived in the US as "refugees." The refuge the US gave these men was used by them to murder innocents. The London Times named Hanif Kureishi one of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945." Given the shoddiness of the plotting and characterization of "My Son the Fanatic," and its skewed politics, one has to wonder why.

I don't feel like writing a long review on this one. I just want to say that, while not a great and classic film, this is a very good one that stands on the cusp of greatness. It is beautifully filmed and most importantly to me, it understands its characters and takes the time to explore the main ones in great detail. This a character study at its core, with a subplot about alienism within families and some of the many causes of it which include religion, age, culture, and the loss of intimacy for a spouse. I do not think, as others have said, that this is a movie about Islam or even religion at all. Although the participation (or not) in Islamic fundamentalism was a big issue for the family in the film, these same types of issues have erupted in families of all faiths since the dawn of religion and are in no way related solely to the Muslim faith. Certainly Islam is prominent in the film - but the film is not about the religion per se and does not go far in the direction of commenting on Islam. As a non-Muslim American, I did not get the sense from the movie that it was either promoting or condemning the Muslim faith, and I give great credit to the filmmakers for this. Islam is a hard subject to tackle and be able to get very far into while maintaining a middle ground, but that has been accomplished here and it does a great deal to elevate the film. Had I felt like I was being manipulated to feel one way or another about Islam, I would not have gotten nearly as much from the film as I did. But as it stands, I alternately felt respect for some of the Islamic men and their moral standards and commitment, and revulsion for some of their actions, such as the attack on the women's home (I realize why they did it, but that does not make it right). I felt that the movie gave me a chance to view Islam objectively without the need to question how I already felt; this gave me the ability to see all of the characters in the film as human beings instead of as representations of a religion. I wish that more films would take this tack - so many feel the need to steer the audience towards feeling one way or another about the always-volatile subject of religion.OK that was bit longer than I intended. But what I really wanted to ask was why we can't make quality films like this in the USA? The reason that I pointed out that this was a very good film but not quite a great one was because I wanted to comment on how even a very good film made elsewhere is so much better than any so-called "great" film made in the USA. Why can't we count on seeing films that explore people, that don't have an agenda, and that are more than opportunities for product placement money and mass marketing of action figures and video games? Well, I do know the answer, at least I think that I do. The almighty dollar. But does Hollywod really think that people in America are so stupid that all they want to see is another movie with Adam Sandler being an untalented hack, or Wesley Snipes as another cop in a movie where everything blows up, or Tommy Lee Jones as some sort of government agent, or Jennifer Aniston being as dull as she is, or Ben Stiller being as dull as he is, or anything with Cameron Diaz or Jennifer Lopez or anybody named Affleck? And I haven't even delved into such atrocities as Rob Schneider or David Spade. Actually my biggest fear is that all of their mega zillion dollar research proves conclusively that Americans really ARE that stupid. Now there's a horror flick for you...

Comedies featuring Asians in Britain have met with much recent success . BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM was an international hit while EAST IS EAST was a big hit at the British box office . MY SON THE FANATIC came out a couple of years earlier than the aforementioned comedies and fails to hit the funny bone An Asian taxi driver forms a platonic bond with a prostitute while his son becomes more and more of a Muslim fanatic . The problem with this is that the story tries to say too much on the dangers of racism , religious fundamentalism , assimilation and that we all have the same basic needs despite our differences . I also got the impression that the movie didn't want to offend sensibilties too much , but there's a scene featuring a nasty and racist comic which is somewhat sickening . Needless to say the comic is white ( A Bernard Manning clone ? ) and his target is Asian . As has been mentioned MY SON THE FANATIC has taken on special signicance post 9/11 but this makes it an even more uneasy watch I will praise the cast which includes Om Puri as the Asian taxi driver who's son is becoming more and more fanatical and mixing with the wrong crowd . Puri gives a sad and haunting performance . Rachael Griffiths who I'm sure is going to become a big name soon gives a performance as a prostitute while Stellan Skarsgaard proves as always that he's the most convincing actor to have come out Europe for many years .

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.