Archie Panjabi Movies
Raven-haired actress Archie Panjabi claimed a unique, exotic, and alluring look that spoke to her Indian ancestry -- and that opened up a myriad of doors in Hollywood productions, usually in a supporting capacity. Raised in Britain, Panjabi first broke through to international acclaim as tomboy Meenah in the Damien O'Donnell-directed Miramax comedy East Is East (1998), then graced the cast of one of the preeminent sleeper hits of 2002, the soccer comedy Bend It Like Beckham. Additional assignments included a small supporting turn in Fernando Meirelles' political thriller The Constant Gardener (2005), a portrayal of Gemma in the Russell Crowe/Marion Cotillard-headlined, Ridley Scott-directed romantic comedy drama A Good Year (2006), and a role in the grueling docudrama A Mighty Heart (2007) as Asra Nomani, a journalist and friend of the Pearl family, who helped in the investigation of his disappearance and murder. In 2006, Panjabi signed with the BBC to portray Maya Roy in the sci-fi-tinged police drama series Life on Mars. In 2008, she appeared opposite Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce in the summer thriller Traitor. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide- 2009
Vincent Regan stars in this French-language paranoia thriller as Peter Burton, a diabolically brilliant young man. In lieu of pursuing a formal education and a 9-to-5 office job, Peter ankled the standard route to success and now makes his living as a serial thief, lifting the valuables of patrons at an airport where he's nominally employed as a baggage handler. His life takes an astonishing turn when one of his colleagues, Gerard, pries open the suitcase of a Syrian diplomat and is promptly blown up by a terrorist bomb; the DST (Directorate of Territorial Surveillance) then approaches Peter, acknowledges that it knows all about his criminal activities, and offers him an ultimatum: it will arrange immunity for all of the pickpocketing if the thief helps the agency track down the parties responsible for the bomb plant. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vincent Regan, Stephen Rea, (more)
An undercover CIA agent within a terrorist cell is marked as a terrorist suspect by the FBI in Overture Films' upcoming thriller Traitor. Don Cheadle produces and stars in the film as the operative under Guy Pearce's investigation. Based on an idea by Steve Martin, the film is written and directed by Day After Tomorrow screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, (more)
Angelina Jolie stars as Mariane Pearl, wife of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, in director Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of Mariane's memoir recounting the abduction and murder of her husband (played in the film by Dan Futterman) by Pakistani militants. It was on January 23, 2002, that Mariane Pearl's life took a grim and unanticipated turn that no one could have seen coming. The South Asia Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl, was in Pakistan with his pregnant wife, Mariane, when he set out to conduct one last interview for an upcoming article; the pair were due to fly back home to the U.S. shortly thereafter. By all accounts, it was the same type of interview he had conducted a hundred times before, and though the only concern that Daniel had voiced beforehand was that he might be a bit late for dinner, it would soon become obvious that something had gone horribly awry. Later, in an attempt to rise above the seething vengeance and cycle of violence that the post-9/11 world has fallen into and familiarize her newborn son with the father he will never know, Mariane penned A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl. The remarkable true story behind the murder that shook the entire world, Mariane's deeply personal novel is adapted for the screen by the BAFTA award-winning director of The Road to Guantanamo. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, (more)
Gladiator duo Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe re-team for this adaptation of author Peter Mayle's best-selling novel about a London-based investment banker who relocates to Provence in hopes of selling a small vineyard he has inherited from his recently deceased uncle. As a child, Max Skinner (Freddie Highmore) was taught to appreciate the finer things in life while wandering the vineyard estate of his sophisticated uncle Henry (Albert Finney). Life has a strange way or turning out how you least expect it to though, and 25 years later, Max (Russell Crowe) is now a prosperous moneyman wheeling and dealing in the cutthroat world of London business. When Max learns that Henry has recently passed away and that he has been named the sole beneficiary of his late uncle's modest estate, the keen businessman hastily arranges a flight to France in order to assess the value of the old property and get it prepped for sale. After Max arrives to find the vineyard in a crumbling state of disrepair, his troubles are further compounded by the stubbornness of gruff estate winemaker M. Duflot (Didier Bourdon) and the unexpected arrival of a determined California beauty named Christie (Abbie Cornish), who presents herself as a long-lost cousin while making a dubious claim to Henry's estate. Meanwhile, the overstressed Max reluctantly finds himself falling for local café owner and town siren Fanny (Marion Cotillard), whose formidable guard is quickly worn down by the smitten beneficiary. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Russell Crowe, Albert Finney, (more)
- 2002
Originally telecast in the United Kingdom, the two-part miniseries White Teeth was based on Zadie Smith's 2000 bestseller about the perils of cultural assimilation in modern day North London. Taking place in the years 1974 to 1992 and set in the melting-pot community of Willesden Green, the story focuses on three different families. The Jamaican-English Archie Jones (Phil Davis) is a professional envelope-folder, while his wife, Clara (Naomie Harris), is a lapsed Jehovah's Witness. Archie's old army buddy Samad Iqbal (Om Puri) is a Bengalese waiter who hails from Bangladesh, also the home country of his sharp-tongued spouse, Alsana (Archie Panjabi). And the Malfen family, headed by Joyce and Marcus (Geraldine James, Robert Bathurst), are fiercely dedicated charter members of the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation (or KEVIN for short). Deftly combining comedy, drama, melodrama, and pathos, the Dickensian interactions and interrelationships among the three families manage to accommodate a variety of dizzying plot convolutions involving disenchanted youngsters, racial prejudice, social pretensions, cult worship, misguided animal activists, a genetically modified mouse, a Nazi war criminal, and a bizarre but brilliant kidnapping scheme. In the United States, White Teeth first aired May 11, 2003, as part of the PBS Masterpiece Theatre anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Om Puri, Philip Davis, (more)
Haydn Gwynne, Robert Bathurst, and Stella Gonet co-star in the British telemovie The Secret (2002), a melodrama originally produced for (and aired on) the BBC. The story concerns Emma Faraday (Gwynne) -- on the surface, a relatively well-adjusted housewife and mother of two children, but beneath it all, the victim of a devastating and traumatizing childhood event that she has resolutely kept buried and locked away for years. All appears well in Emma's adult life -- until an embittered childhood friend, Nadia (Gonet), turns up and resurrects the past, jovially wielding the deadly weapon of blackmail by bringing Emma's secret back to bear on her and threatening to destroy everything that Emma has worked so carefully and diligently to build for herself. Alrick Riley (MI-5) directs. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Haydn Gwynne, Stella Gonet, (more)
An independent-minded young woman discovers the joys of football, much to her family's chagrin, in this upbeat British comedy drama. Jess Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) is an 18-year-old growing up in West London, where her family has taken every effort to stay in touch with its Indian heritage. Jess' father and mother (Anupam Kher and Shaheen Khan) are after their daughter to go to law school, learn to cook a traditional Indian dinner, and settle down with a nice Indian boy -- the latter of which is high on the agenda of her older sister Pinky (Archie Panjabi), who is soon to wed her longtime beau Teetu (Kulvinder Ghir). However, her family is unaware that Jess has a secret passion -- football (or soccer, as it's known in North America). While Jess' enthusiasm for football star David Beckham is obvious, given the fact his photos cover the walls of her room, her parents don't know that in her spare time she likes to play a friendly game in the park with some of the boys in the neighborhood. One day, while Jess and her pals kick the ball around, she meets Jules (Keira Knightley), who is quite impressed with Jess' skills. Jules plays with a local semi-pro women's football team, the Hounslow Harriers, and she thinks Jess has what it takes to make the team. Jess knows that her parents would never approve of their daughter playing football, so she doesn't tell them, and starts spinning an increasingly complex series of lies as she tries to keep up a double life as a student and a footballer. Jess soon discovers a number of her new friends have their own problems to overcome; Jules dreams of playing pro ball in America, but has to deal with her stubborn and disapproving mother (Juliet Stevenson), while Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), Hounslow's Irish coach, still struggles with the disappointment of a career as a professional athlete which was dashed by a knee injury. Bend It Like Beckham was a significant box-office success in Great Britain and Europe, but didn't reach American theaters until nearly a year after it debuted in the U.K. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, (more)
A kind of "best-of" account of the books of Genesis and Exodus, this two-part NBC miniseries aired in November 2000. Part One, set in the desert, covers the stories of Abraham (Martin Landau), Sarah (Jacqueline Bisset), Isaac (Sean Pertwee), Rebeccah (Diana Rigg), Esau (Andrew Grainger), and Jacob (Frederick Weller) and culminates with the enslavement of Joseph (Eddie Cibrian). Part Two, set in biblical Egypt, focuses on the story of Moses (Billy Campbell) and his deliverance of his people from slavery. Also included in the miniseries' huge and illustrious cast are Alan Bates as Jethro, Geraldine Chaplin as Yocheved, and Jonathan Firth as Joshua. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Landau, Jacqueline Bisset, (more)
East is East, a fast-moving comedy drama of mixed-race manners, is set in Salford, England in 1970. It centers on the Anglo-Pakistani alliance of the Khan family that is both claustrophobically cohesive and hopelessly dysfunctional. In their over-crowded terrace house, anarchy erupts daily with farcical energy. The Khan children, caught between the traditional dogmatism of their Pakistani father (Om Puri) and laissez-faire attitude of their British mother (Linda Bassett), have a lot of difficulties to follow their dreams of becoming citizens of the modern world. Based on the award-winning stage play by Ayub Khan-Din, East is East had great success in the theatres of London before it was made into a film. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Om Puri, Linda Bassett, (more)
- 1996
Having been captivated by the new age movement, Sgt. Patricia Dawkins decides to go through an elaborate "rebirthing" process -- thereby driving her off-and-on lover, Inspector Raymond Fowler, completely bonkers. In the same spirit, Constable Frank Goody decides to adopt an alternative (to say the least) lifestyle. Other crises at the Gasforth Police Station involve Detective Inspector Grim's efforts to bust druggies at a local "rave," a temporarily co-ed bathroom, and a visit from the sister of WPC Maggie Habib. "Alternative Culture" originally aired on December 5, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rowan Atkinson, Serena Evans, (more)
- 1996
The quartet of short films for this British anthology, compiled by Women Make Movies, were all made for the British Film Institute and BBC Films in 1994. The central theme unifying them is death. In the first short, "White Men Are Cracking Up," from Ngozi Onwurah, several prominent British colonialists commit suicide. The detective assigned to the cases investigates and discovers that each of the deceased saw an enigmatic African woman perform a traditional dance. Pratibha Parmar directed the second vignette "Memsahib Rita," to chronicle the internal culture class suffered by a London girl with a British mother and a Sri Lankan father. In Dani Williamson's "Get Me to the Crematorium on Time," a recently widowed middle-aged, financially comfortable black woman struggles to keep her sanity while trying to cope with her husband's death, finding comfort only by conversing with his ghost. Finallyj, in Frances-Anne Solomon's "Bideshi," a comatose middle-aged man from Bengal attempts to put his life affairs in order before leaving his injured body. His life flashes by in brief episodes beginning with his emigration to Britain. He then sees his daughter's birth and from there watches as she rebels, grows distant and prepares to have a black man's child, something that has caused a great rift between father and daughter. Still while drifting in sleep, the Bengali sends his spirit forth to make peace with her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1981
Created for Britain's BBC1 in 1981, Postman Pat was a 15-minute children's show utilizing stop-motion animation and set in the mythical Yorkshire village of Greendale. The bushy-haired, needle-nosed titled character was the meticulously polite and endlessly resourceful Pat Clifton, the town's postman. In each episode, Pat's efforts to deliver mail were invariably complicated by unforeseen problems, at which point virtually every citizen in the tightly knit community pulled together to help Pat (or themselves) out. The object of this, of course, was to help the kiddies in the audience hone their own problem-solving and other cognitive skills. The huge and colorful "supporting cast" included Pat's pet cat, Jess; schoolkids Katy and Tom Pottage, Charlie Pringle, and Lucy Selby; local prelate Rev. Timms; farmers Alf Thompson, George Lancaster, and Peter Fogg; auto-shop owner Sam Waldron; handyman Ted Glen; waitress Nisha Bains; Police Constable Selby; and general practitioner Dr. Sylvia Gilbertson. Although Postman Pat was popular the world over under a variety of titles -- in Poland it was known as Listonosz Pat, in Holland it was Pieter Post, and in Iran it was Pat-e Postchi, etc. -- the series was not widely seen in America until September of 2005, when it was picked up for daily play by the HBO Family channel. The episodes seen during this run were not from the original 1980s version of Postman Pat, but instead from the 2003 revival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Barrie, Archie Panjabi, (more)
