Bhasker Movies

In the mid 1960s, scores of refugees from India illegally came to England looking for a better life and found themselves living the very lives they sought to escape. This British drama, chronicles the daily existence of one household of these illegal refugees. The tale centers on Amir who journeys to a grungy northern English industrial town via vegetable crate with only a few dollars to his name. He ends up staying in a ramshackle house with 17 other illegals, all of them men. They lead a dreary life working in a factory filled with others like them. The only bright spot in their lives is a weekly outing to the local cinema that shows Indian films during the daytime. Occasionally a whore visits the house and provides the men with sexual release. The leader of the house is Hussein Shah, a traditional patriarch. Upon his arrival, Amir is befriended by Sakib, a student who shows him the basic ropes of English living. Despite their humble lives, the men get on well. But one day, Hussein brings home a new illegal alien, a lovely blonde woman from Ireland and trouble ensues. The woman is unmarried and pregnant. To help her, Hussein allows a marriage of convenience between the woman and his smart-alecky nephew Irshad. The baby is born, but more trouble ensues when Hussein begins objecting to the woman's free-spirited ways, and his nephew's lack of respect. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This romantic comedy concerns Kate Swallow (Carole Bouquet), who works in a French department store to help support her husband Alec (Jonathan Pryce), an egocentric novelist who insists on peace and quiet when he writes. Kate has literary aspirations herself, but Alec complains that the clacking of the keys on her laptop is too much of a distraction for him (he prefers to write longhand). Alec's editor Vanni Corso (Christopher Walken) has high hopes for his next book, which needs to sell well if his company is to pull itself out of the red. While Vanni is interested in Alec's novel, he also becomes interested in Alec's wife, and Kate becomes quite taken with Vanni as well. In time she leaves Alex to pursue a relationship with Vanni and work on her own book. Kate's novel turns out to do quite well indeed, but there's trouble in paradise when Vanni tells her he's not so sure her second novel is going to go anywhere. Business Affair was loosely based on the real-life literary and romantic travails of author Barbara Skelton. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The inmates of an insane asylum and Indian bureaucrats react to the sweeping political changes of 1947 when over a million people died in the conflict that led to the establishment of Pakistan. Actors often play dual roles as they portray bureaucrats and the hopelessly insane. Little insight of the historical causes for the partition is given in the feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

After the death of his wife and his subsequent descent into alcoholic near-agoraphobia, a crotchety Pakistani intellectual convinces his shady entrepreneur brother to provide work for his son in this multi-layered portrait of the immigrant experience in Great Britain. Young Londoner Omar (Gordon Warnecke) isn't sure what he wants out of life, but his uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey) provides a corrupt, capitalist role model as Omar graduates from washing cars for the old crook to running his run-down laundromat. After a chance meeting with Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), an old school chum whose flirtation with fascism deeply wounded Omar's principled Papa (Roshan Seth), Omar hires the young thug to work for him. Soon, the pair begin a romantic relationship that remains as under wraps as the illicit drug-running and enforcement work they perform for Nasser's associate, Salim (Derrick Branche). On the domestic front, Omar must balance his knowledge of Nasser's long-running affair with posh Brit Rachel (Shirley Ann Field) with his own loyalty and attraction to Nasser's westernized daughter, Tania (Rita Wolf). After successfully transforming his laundrette into a vision of resplendent pastel suds and providing a bright spot in his otherwise squalid London neighborhood, Omar seems to have a bright future in Nasser's organization. The spectre of Johnny's past, however, combines with Omar's conflicted immigrant loyalties to threaten the sense of identity the young man has managed to stake out for himself. British-born, half-Pakistani playwright and novelist Hanif Kureishi won an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette, which was originally filmed for BBC television. Kureishi collaborated again with director Stephen Frears on Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi