ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

meowk-04206 to be honest, i started watching this movie by chance. i found it very boring, dowdy, and fittingly dull. i didn't realize the men were lovers at first. That's not really the point, but i was intrigued by the their situation, and taboos. the Spanish girl daniel day lewis lover, wrote about the ethnic chip on omar's shoulder. i found her review interesting. it does sum up issues omar is dealing with. such as acculturation. though i do find his inability to adapt to either culture (according to her review) a personal problem, and decision. do you have to choose? is there an imposed division? yes. self imposed. she mentions looking down on poor whites, as his family of criminal immigrants have their own form of snobbery (her words) and apparently this "ethnic" issue colors his life. considering that he is sleeping with one of those poor whites. in addition to considering arranged marriage. above all the characters were not valuable. no matter how much $$$ omar & family have, he will never be white, or heterosexual. boo hoo. that should be okay. personal issues. with the themes of racism homosexuality and ethnicity, this movie should have been better. the only appeal here is the beauty of the 2 lead actors, and the ending, not their performance. i would pass on this one, but YOU wouldn't know that unless you see for yourself. i wouldn't recommend it, so i don't.

preppy-3 Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a Pakistani boy living in London caring for his sick father. His father gets his uncle to get him a job. Omar starts by washing cars but ends up buying a falling apart launderette from his uncle. He also meets his ex Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis) a punk British kid. They refurbish the place and start having sex. But Johnny's friends HATE Pakistanis and the class differences between Omar and Johnny threaten to tear them apart.This is often called a gay movie but I disagree. Yes there are two gay characters in it but their love story is just one of many elements. It deals mostly with the war between the British and Pakistani immigrants. The love story consists only of a few long and incredibly uncomfortable kisses. Both of the actors are str8 and (by all accounts) hated the kissing scenes. It comes through clearly on screen. That aside there lots of drama and comedy about Omar and his family and Johnny and his friends. This takes place in 1985 Britain and was originally shot for British TV so I didn't get all the cultural references and know very little about British life back then. Still I was able to pretty much follow it. The acting is very good by the supporting cast but the two leads don't really work. Warnecke is way too naïve to be believable and when he tries to act like he's tough it's laughable. Day-Lewis is VERY badly miscast as a punk. He was about 27 when he did this and looks older. He's a great actor NOW but back then had a lot to learn. Still this was an interesting comedy/drama about 1985 Britain.

lasttimeisaw Under the iron curtain of Thatcherism in the 1980s, UK veteran Stephen Frears' fourth feature film is an ethnic barrier-breaker in the world queer cinema, much as its fervid confrontations between races and social classes, the central closeted romance between an ex-punk Johnny (Day-Lewis) and a Pakistani Briton Omar (Warnecke) is nurtured with robust intimacy and élan. Enclosed by a synth-pop heavy pulse, the film starts with Johnny and his gang being expelled from their squatting apartment by some heavies, a similar territory Daniel Day-Lewis would retread in IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993), then cutting to introduce another protagonist, Omar, a college dropout sent to work for his uncle Nasser (Jaffrey) by his bed-ridden father (Seth), a disillusioned idealist and leftist), in Nasser's car-washing lot, Omar meets Nasser's business partner Salim (Branche), a menacing and overbearing bully who conducts some seedy business and Nasser's mistress Rachel (Anne Field), who assumes a quite modernized view of being the other woman, but the entire entanglement will end up with some ludicrous witchcraft. Omar is ambitious and fast-learning, soon he gets the permission to run Nasser's dilapidated laundromat, and reunites with Johnny, who has been his best friend since childhood, together they embezzle the dough from Salim's underhand drug smuggling and refurbish the laundrette and make a successful business, their romance is also rekindled. But at the same time, Omar is obliged by Nasser to marry his disobedient daughter Tania (Wolf), and Johnny is reckoned as a betrayer by his ne'er-do-well gang members since he is working for Palestinians (also as an unscrewer for kick out Nasser's impecunious tenants), in addition to the conflict between Omar and Salim, there will be blood in the end. Violence is a requisite in depicting the gulf between well-off immigrants and poverty-stricken native malcontents, xenophobia, racial bias and chauvinism, all can be easily related and incited under the harsh environs, but Frears doesn't attempt to make a point by resorting too much to the excesses, whereas the tender, masculine attraction between two men is rendered with cozy panache and passion, truly, it is an in-the-closet relationship, but it is not about coming-out or AIDs, these routine trappings of the era, their future might be a moot point, however, the virtue of their love strikes as comfortingly authentic and endearing, thanks to the great pair Warnecke and Day-Lewis, one is resolutely sincere and the other is overwhelmingly charismatic, they do make a desirable couple together! Juxtaposed with its peers like MAURICE (1987, 7/10) and ANOTHER COUNTRY (1984, 8/10), MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE's grassroots ambiance and buoyant undertones applicably complement the missing piece of the UK queer cinema menagerie, not revolutionary, but a wonderful bliss indeed.

stephparsons My Beautiful Launderette is an inspired movie and a perfect example of how the British manage to make brilliant, (fairly) low-budget movies. Gorden Warnecke plays Omar Ali, the go-getting son of an alcoholic Pakistani father and Daniel Day-Lewis is 'Johnny', an 'ex-thug' who is Omar's on again/off again lover. Launderette could be interpreted as a film about racism, implied homophobia, and the British class system and does indeed comprise all these themes but without offering answers, without passing judgement, without obvious heroes and/or villains and with a minimal pity quotient for those who get the bad end of the stick.The plot is simple, and almost incidental to the movie, but does provide a good vehicle for the more obvious subjects covered. Omar's Uncle, a seemingly successful businessman, offers Omar a fruitless, failing, shabby, thug-filled launderette to run, maybe as a test of the boy's ambition and drive, and as a favour to Omar's father. Johnny, being on the dole, and having just been kicked out of his lodgings for, one presumes, some nefarious, petty crimes, hooks up once more with Omar and together they get to work beautifying the launderette. There is much irony in Launderette, including the fact that Johnny has only just broken away from the brutish gang of disaffected, unemployed, racist youth and, despite being in love with Omar all along, participated readily in racist attacks and, along with his fellow hooligans, referred to all Asians as 'Pakis'. This classic film paints a very accurate picture of the British recession in the mid 80s which gave rise to an 'underclass' of sorts, who either couldn't find work, or didn't want to work and quite gladly lived 'on the dole' for months or years. The unemployed white youth provide an obvious contrast to the hard working Asians, giving rise to an illogical, but all too real phenomenon of resentment toward the Asians who 'have taken all the jobs'. Another striking contrast is that between Omar and Johnny; Omar's ambitiousness and Johnny's lack of a work ethic, Omar's ethnicity and Johnny's erstwhile racism; Omar's optimism (almost verging on naivety) and Johnny's jaded, indifferent disposition. Launderette also astutely demonstrates the disparity between the older and younger Asian generations; the 'elders' having been raised in almost certain hardship in Pakistan, immigrating to England, finding jobs, working hard and making money, while their children grow up in England, in the midst of a recession and have the same jaded, cynical views on work and society as their white counterparts. Daniel Day-Lewis is phenomenal as the conflicted Johnny who may appear to be a mindless, lazy, none too bright, trouble-making ruffian but doesn't really care about risking the destruction of his 'bad boy' reputation when he shows such sensitivity to Omar and thoroughly immerses himself in the challenge of revamping the launderette. It is at this point that we see what power Omar has over Johnny and they fall into a virtual boss/unpaid employee role. The irony is that Omar's extended family may appear to be successful but much of their power and wealth comes through the dodgy dealings of Omar's cousin Salim, the 'cool' and brutish 'king pin', played excellently by Derrick Branche. Salim is the one with, supposedly, all the 'power'. But his money and 'power' within his Pakistani community mean little in the end. Racism prevails and he is just another 'Paki' at the mercy of vicious louts.My Beautiful Launderette is bleak yet hopeful, brutal yet sensitive, optimistic yet dispiriting. It offers more questions than it proffers answers, illustrates the brutal pointlessness of racism without presenting any solutions or any justice for its victims. It is objective, unsentimental, intelligent and captivating and I believe it deserves to be regarded as a classic of our times.