Eaten by Lions

Dir: Jason Wingard

2018

**

I really wanted to love Eaten by Lions, and while I didn’t hate it, I thought it could have been so much better with a few tweaks. It is a feature-length adaptation of director Jason Wingard’s 2013 short film 'Going to Mecca' which won best comedy at the Manchester International Film Festival that year and there lies the problem. It has its ups and its downs because it is essentially a diluted story. The short film was sharp and snappy and didn’t waste a second of its 20 minute run time. While the feature length stretched version does build on the original in turns of tenderness and humour, it also complicates the simplicity of the original that made it so good in the first place. Also, and I take no joy in saying this, the two leads didn’t work together. Antonio Aakeel is a good looking lad but he can’t act to save his life, whereby Jack Carroll was brilliant, upstaging Aakeel in every single scene. The story follows two half-brothers, Omar and Pete, who were both brought up together by their grandmother after their mother and second partner (Pete’s dad) were eaten by Lions in a freak accident. After their grandmother dies, the pair are promised a home with Pete’s aunt and uncle but they clearly don’t want Omar to come too. Upon the discovery that Omar’s father is actually still alive and not dead as he was told, the pair skip school and go to Liverpool in search of Omar’s Dad. They soon get themselves into trouble, not only are they naive kids but Pete is disabled and unable to walk unaided, so when Omar wanders off and leaves him on the beach, Pete finds himself in trouble when the tide comes in. Omar returns in time to save his brother but their belongings and money are all washed away. A young girl called Ellen (Vicki Pepperdine) takes a shine to Omar and takes pity on the pair. She takes them to her Uncle Ray’s Bed & Breakfast and asks that he let them stay for free as a favour for her. Ray (Johnny Vegas) agrees and much hilarity follows, given the odd nature of Ray and how he treats his guests. The brothers soon tract down who they think is Omar’s father but a case of mistaken identity causes quite a commotion during a family gathering. Malik (Nitin Ganatra), the man they believe is Omar’s estranged father, is looked at by his wife and family as a cheater and he tries desperately to prove he is not the father. Then his brother Irfan joins the celebration and it comes apparent that he is Omar’s real father. Irfan (Asim Chaudhry) is not exactly what Omar was expecting. A big kid himself, Irfan admits to lying about his name to Omar’s mother on a weekend away but tries to convince Omar that he can be his dad, the coolest dad he could hope for. The film then gets unnecessarily moody as the brothers argue and separate. There is a ridiculous scene whereby Irfan’s niece leads Pete astray and gets them drunk to steal a Rolls Royce. The pair cruse around town, picking up homeless drunks and eventually bring people back to the family house when no one is in and crash the car into it. The brothers make up and they all live happily ever after. It’s a sweet idea but its all a bit too much. The outrageous comedy scenes are totally over cooked and there are far too many of them. Likewise, the melodrama is too heavy-handed and the film suffers for it. The film is at its best when its being simple and subtle. If I’m being completely honest, the film is at its best when it is following Jack Carroll. Carroll’s Pete is essentially a supporting role but he should really have been the main character. Johnny Vegas also brings some much needed comedy and Nitin Ganatra and Darshan Jariwala are the only actors to bring some real acting to the table. I like Asim Chaudhry a lot but here he is playing a watered-down version of the character he is best known for playing, there really isn’t anything for him to do and no elbow room for him to do what he does best. Sometimes a film needs to stop and breath for a few seconds and that’s what Eaten by Lions fails to do. Adapting a short into a feature film is never easy and while they got so much of it right, it only goes to show up the parts of the film that they got so dreadfully wrong. It might sound like I hated the film but I really didn’t, I liked it so much that I wanted better for it. I can only be honest and say that the acting wasn’t great and that I think it was written for commercial reasons more than it was written out of passion. I believe the extra stuff was written because ‘that’s what the audience wants’ rather than because it would have been better for the story. I do expect to see more from Jason Wingard and I really hope to see more from Jack Carroll who I think has a brilliantly natural talent for comedy for someone so young.