Scraps Stuffs - Random musings from apun ka desh

I saw Mangal Pandey - The Rising yesterday. One family friend had panned the film and some of the reviews I read didn't rate it highly. Being an Amir Khan film and being an Amir Khan fan, I was waiting to watch this with great expectations which I knew wouldn't be fulfilled. I was right but that doesn't give me any pleasure.

I was underwhelmed and still have a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. The film has been shot beautifully and the acting is decent. Amir Khan can now sleepwalk through just about any film and still give a better performance than a huge number of his contemporaries or juniors. Rani Mukerji and Amisha Patel didn't have much to do and hence didn't do much. Toby Stephens was the surprise package of the film and he played the part of William Gordon to perfection.

At its heart, I found the film to be a story of two friends and their conflicting loyalties against the background of the 1857 war of independence. But the director probably wanted to depict how one man becomes the symbol of the war and how his destiny changes because of some events. This got lost somewhere because of the confusion as to what was to be depicted. I felt the passion was somewhat missing. And, except for life in the native infantry, the film didn't succeed in depicting life in those times, which is what I was hoping for. Maybe too much to expect in a three hour film!

All the same, I enjoyed the movies as it was competently made and had lots of eye candy in the form of generously endowed Rani Mukerji. The scenics are stunning too.

The movie was titled "Mangal Pandey - The Rising" in Hindi. I think the English version is titled "The Rising - Ballad of Mangal Pandey", i didn't know that the movie was shot in both languages.