Eaten by Lions tries too hard to be a northern feel good low budget farcical comedy.
When their parents were eaten by lions on a trip to Africa. Half brothers Omar (Antonio Aakeel) and Pete (Jack Carroll) were raised by their grandmother. After it was made clear the boys aunt did not want the asian Omar, but the disabled Pete would be reluctantly taken in as he was white.
Now teenagers the boys are on the verge of being split up again after the death of their grandmother. The aunt makes it clear that Omar is not welcome.
They leave Bradford and head to Blackpool to find Omar's real father. Only to find that dad Irfan (Asim Chaudhry) is a man child himself.
Omar tries to fit in with Irfan's extended family. Pete tries to fight off the advances of Irfan's mute relative.
There is a little bit of everything from other movies here. Steve Martin's The Jerk to the Schwarzenegger and Devito comedy vehicle Twins. The flirty relative was straight out of My Beautiful Launderette. The horrid aunt might as well be the Dursleys from Harry Potter.
Populated by eccentric characters, Johnny Vegas playing the slightly lewd Uncle Ray (another variant of Uncle Monty from Withnail and I.) It tried to be funny but rarely made me laugh.
It was a scattergun script, when the movie would had been better to let have fewer characters and let them develop.
Although a low budget film, the Blackpool scenes were well photographed.
