Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Wendy Godsend "My Beautiful Laundrette" is most commonly advertised as a drama and comedy, though the richly symbolic romantic aspect between the main two boys is what quietly takes the show. I have never seen a relationship in film that comes close to the classic, inspiring, well-known pair of Johnny and Omar.Johnny, who seemingly takes the lead in their sexual and romantic relationship, is a white, rough-and-tumble street punk caught up in a small gang and going nowhere. Omar is a bright-eyed, handsome Pakistani boy who takes care of his father, and when a taste of work comes his way, wants nothing more than "big money" and to prove the country he lives in will not beat him. Johnny's lust and love for Omar is apparent from the start, and in a handsomely unique and unpredictable fashion, their business relationship is reversed on terms of who leads who, providing an interesting dynamic between them.Omar's warm, eager demeanor and Johnny's quiet, sideways glances tell the audience about the previous foundation of their past relationship within the first twenty seconds of their meeting. I couldn't imagine that sort of raw, unspoken integrity ever being so successfully accomplished without these two actors and the fantastic chemistry between their characters.Johnny's absolute loyalty to Omar is heartwarming, promising, and honest. He wants nothing more than to prove his love and partnership with everything he has, and he offers it all - his work, his love, and sex. Omar reciprocates his love with forgiveness and, despite being the boss in their business relationship, his consistent admiration toward Johnny is apparent, deep and romantic. He changes into a more confident and proud man with Johnny by his side.Daniel Day-Lewis(Johnny) and Gordon Warnecke(Omar)'s performances were, I will say once more, just spectacular. I have never seen any bit of film quite as passionate, honest nor as erotic as the scene where Johnny and Omar make love. I've been inspired by seeing the tenderness and moving passion of both their love and general partnership - their compatibility is demonstrated by their determination to stay together, despite what happens in the midst of the insanity the film provides.I will say that it is also very real, however, and therefore it does have its rough moments and ups and downs like any relationship between two people should. I won't say too much aside from that I thought the ending was sweet and it took me by surprise, not bothering with a few loose ties if only to inspire lovely ambiguity.There is much more to "My Beautiful Laundrette" than Johnny and Omar's romantic relationship, but the symbolism it serves - as representing the hopeful future, their business, how the world sees them - relates to all aspects of the film. Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke's performances alone are enough of a reason to give it a watch.If you'd like to see a smart, witty, beautiful love story rich in symbolism and more substance than a single review could do justice for, I'd recommend you do yourself a favor by watching "My Beautiful Laundrette."

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.

damittaja I watched this movie because my wife wanted to see it. I didn't have very high expectations for it and I knew what the plot would be because I had read the IMDb summary. I've happened to watch some movies lately which have been way better than the ratings they've had but this one most definitely does not go into that bunch. The plot did go through following some weird script but the problem was that they probably had cut away a lot events that were not central. Scenes would end abruptly or jump to a totally different scene or atmosphere. It made the characters and events a tad too hard to follow. At many points during the movie I was baffled at why the characters did what they did. However, if the point was to depict the chaotic life of people living on the streets and how they supposedly don't behave rationally, this movie succeeded in that goal.The movie is defined as comedy/drama/romance. There were a few funny things I laughed, I admit, but not nearly enough to warrant a comedy definition. Mostly the movie was drama and romance. The drama was OK, all the characters had problems with life and so on and they tried to cope with the difficult and unfair situations they encountered themselves in. The romance part...well, not my thing here. I guess the movie tried to be provocative and probably was back in 1985 when it was first released but now it was just a bit silly. There was this "dangerous love" element in it and it just didn't work out. The script was no good and the actors quite stiff.Also, the sounds were horrible. I don't even know how you can fail with 80's music but this movie did just that.If you are looking for a movie with such a love theme as this one I guess the movie will be OK for you as my wife informed me that the movie was OK but for me it was a pain to watch through.

miss_lady_ice-853-608700 Maybe it's the fact that the film's very British and very eighties but how can this possibly score 6.9 whereas tripe like Good Will Hunting gets 8? Sometimes I despair at the reviewers on here.Anyway, back to the film. Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a young Asian guy who goes to work for his Thatcherite uncle (Saeed Jaffrey). His ambition is to renovate his uncle's run-down laundrette. He gets in his white mate Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) to give him a hand and the two guys fall in love.My Beautiful Laundrette completely encapsulates the zeitgeist of 1980's Britain, tackling everything from racial tension, immigration, generation differences, class differences, Thatcherism and homosexuality. I say 'tackle'- it's presented but the viewer is allowed to make their own minds up. This is primarily a coming-of-age film and on that level it can appeal to everyone.As for the arguments that you can only like this film if you fit into one of the criteria portrayed here or the period it was set in, they're completely ridiculous. So, we can only like Schindler's List if we're a Nazi or a Jew and were alive in the forties? Come on people. The only criteria I fit in with this film is that I live in Britain- not even London, where the film's set.What a lot of people dislike about the film is that it portrays a lot of the tensions happening in Britain but it does so on a very human level. No character is just a victim of the state. It's a light romantic comedy that lets us see the violence and racism but doesn't linger, making it more powerful when things do happen.As for the relationship between Omar and Johnny, it's portrayed very tenderly (and very sexily, though tasteful). What is rare for a 'gay film'- a label given to any film that has gay characters in- is that the characters aren't tortured over their sexuality or punished. It's just portrayed as a normal loving relationship and the two actors- both straight- are very convincing.Now Daniel Day Lewis has bagged his third Oscar, breaking the record for Best Actor, how does he fare in a very early film in his career? I really enjoyed his performance- you can see there's something about him, even at this age. His facial structure is outstanding- he looks very striking. And there's none of the mannerisms you might expect from an actor destined to do well. He comes across as a fresh talent- which he was.