Mangal Pandey - The Rising
Published by Mysorean on Saturday, August 20, 2005 at 2:30:00 pm.
After hits like the Oscar-nominated ‘Lagaan’ and trend-setting ‘Dil Chahta Hai”, Aamir Khan comes up with his next venture “Mangal Pandey – The Rising”. Having made his fans wait for four long years, expectations were sky high. Rather they were so high; I don’t think people could even convert their expectation into words. Aamir Khan was expected to deliver a “Lagaan” everytime he starred in a movie.
“Mangal Pandey – The Rising” was touted to be India’s answer to Braveheart, Gladiator, etc. Surely, Aamir is bigger than Mel Gibson & Russel Crowe put together in India, but MP doesn’t get anywhere near Braveheart or Gladiator. MP is a good movie by average Bollywood standards, but nowhere near what it was hyped up to be. It has been shot with the thought in the mind that we are making an epic. We need to match everything that an epic should have. Such reverse workings never help. Success has no shortcuts.
The story and script are the two things that fail to live upto the hype. Lets keep the ‘inaccuracies’ aside. (Like someone said, “History is a fable of the successful”. So, having inaccuracies in history is like accusing politicians of lying!) Adding characters by the dozen in the name of cinematic liberty doesn’t add any value to the main theme of patriotism. This is the “Love” syndrome that our moviemakers are afflicted with. Remember “The Legend of Bhagat Singh”? Bhagat Singh’s love interest was created. Of course, for those markets in Bihar and UP that bring in the revenue! Don’t you understand the marketing side of movie-making?! Rani Mukherjee becomes a kothewaali, lover, wife and a freedom fighter. That’s some characterization! Amisha Patel is a meek wife-married-in-childhood, widow-staring-at-death, lady-who-feels-she-doesn’t-deserve-to-live, girl-who-loves-to-play-holi and does anyone remember what happens to her in the end?! Here we lose the character itself!
The theme of the movie was supposed to be Mangal Pandey’s story of how one man ignited the War of Indian Independence. Dramatization dilutes the theme. The story and the script-writers have drawn the line a bit too far is my opinion. I was expecting a hair-raising experience of watching MP if not another “Lagaan”. But that happened only in the last ten minutes.
Somehow most of the scenes lost their significance in the chaos. The scene where MP walks beyond the rifles, to the canon and says “Fire!” was a scene with such great potential. Aamir portrayed everything to perfection. The background music was thrilling. But the scene didn’t leave me with that wow feeling! Instead the immediate next scene was a comical face of the General!
Screenplay by the much-respected Farookh Dhondhy is another letdown. Once Aamir mouths the dialogue, “Aapne sirf hamari wafaaari dekhi, ab hamari krodh dekhiye. Aapki company ki dhajjiyan udadenge”, you know the next scene? “Intermission”! It’s like taking you to the climax and leaving you when you got high!
I am sorry. But that was not expected of such a talented team. Everybody knows the story of MP, so the trick was in building up excitement in the already known story. The idea was right. The execution is all messed up! When the “Holi” song came, I was completely out of tune with the theme of the movie. I love India, I love Aamir, I wanted to love MP. These things completely let me down.
Mangal Pandey as a character in a hindi cinema would do well as the initial module in a movie on the War of Indian Independence. Or even better would be the same movie, edited properly, in a length of 2 hrs would make a crisp and slick movie. It still wouldn’t be an epic. The story is by itself weak to be an epic. To make an epic you need a story that holds the audience till the end of the story. Or else you need to be a story-teller with legendary qualities.
Sadly, Ketan Mehta is neither a good story-teller nor does he have an efficient story on hand. He has a great idea with him, but the idea is a good thought. Period. It was not worthy of being made into a ‘period’ film of epic proportions. And making a ballad out of it would probably have given it a different genre and hence maybe much more respect. KM is found hanging between making a ballad, a movie and an epic. He’s clearly confused! Having an idea in your mind for 20 long years, you just want to put everything you thought of onto the screen. This is what happens!
The same uncertainty is found in the music maestro A R Rahman’s score. Since ballad was the initial briefing we had a few songs. Then, we shifted to making a movie. So, the songs needed to be ‘commercial’. Mess-up in other words! Songs appear at every unexpected place! We are making an epic movie that’s going to have an International release under a famous banner! We shall make money with the background score too. A R Rahman is probably the best composer in the world at this point of time. His background score proves this point. According to grapevine, we should be having a release of the background score separately. Get ready to grab your copies!
Aamir Khan has now gone beyond the best performers of any generation. In a movie full of distractions, he is the only one to hold your attention! Rightly justifying the frenzied shouting that accompanied his name during the title credits! Apart from Aamir, the only other name that was cheered during the title credits was A R Rahman! Who says the music was bad?! Aamir is in a league of his own. There’s no point in trying to compare him with others because they share a surname with him! And there’s no point wasting ink on this Living Legend. He’s perfect!
Toby Stephens does a good job. His Hindi was unbearable. Everything else was just fine. Half of my time of watching MP was spent in collating the pieces my neighbour and I understood of Toby’s dialogue. There were many instances when my neighbour and I looked at each other for a moment and then realized he had actually spoken in English and there was no necessity for us to collaborate and understand that one. We had already missed the dialogue anyway!
I read in many other reviews that Rani Mukherjee did a good job! Good for her! And may I also take this opportunity to appreciate the reviewer’s patience and observation skills! I didn’t notice her performance much. I can now tell you the length and breadth of her cleavage to 95% accuracy levels. Oh I am so perverted! Yeah go on!
Tthe totally-out-of-place-song “Rasiya” having two girls fondling each other, the dialogues that the kothewaalis exchange with MP, the ‘purdah’ uthana scene during Rani’s introduction, the unnecessary kiss in the irrelevant love story of Amisha & Toby, led one of my friends to remark, “Abey yeh to Mangal Pandey nahi, Mangal Pondy* hai”!
[*Pondy is a slang word used to name a genre of movies that have sexually explicit material]
Jokes apart, the movie was good. Could have been better! But I will not watch it again.
Tomorrow: Sense of mission
“Mangal Pandey – The Rising” was touted to be India’s answer to Braveheart, Gladiator, etc. Surely, Aamir is bigger than Mel Gibson & Russel Crowe put together in India, but MP doesn’t get anywhere near Braveheart or Gladiator. MP is a good movie by average Bollywood standards, but nowhere near what it was hyped up to be. It has been shot with the thought in the mind that we are making an epic. We need to match everything that an epic should have. Such reverse workings never help. Success has no shortcuts.
The story and script are the two things that fail to live upto the hype. Lets keep the ‘inaccuracies’ aside. (Like someone said, “History is a fable of the successful”. So, having inaccuracies in history is like accusing politicians of lying!) Adding characters by the dozen in the name of cinematic liberty doesn’t add any value to the main theme of patriotism. This is the “Love” syndrome that our moviemakers are afflicted with. Remember “The Legend of Bhagat Singh”? Bhagat Singh’s love interest was created. Of course, for those markets in Bihar and UP that bring in the revenue! Don’t you understand the marketing side of movie-making?! Rani Mukherjee becomes a kothewaali, lover, wife and a freedom fighter. That’s some characterization! Amisha Patel is a meek wife-married-in-childhood, widow-staring-at-death, lady-who-feels-she-doesn’t-deserve-to-live, girl-who-loves-to-play-holi and does anyone remember what happens to her in the end?! Here we lose the character itself!
The theme of the movie was supposed to be Mangal Pandey’s story of how one man ignited the War of Indian Independence. Dramatization dilutes the theme. The story and the script-writers have drawn the line a bit too far is my opinion. I was expecting a hair-raising experience of watching MP if not another “Lagaan”. But that happened only in the last ten minutes.
Somehow most of the scenes lost their significance in the chaos. The scene where MP walks beyond the rifles, to the canon and says “Fire!” was a scene with such great potential. Aamir portrayed everything to perfection. The background music was thrilling. But the scene didn’t leave me with that wow feeling! Instead the immediate next scene was a comical face of the General!
Screenplay by the much-respected Farookh Dhondhy is another letdown. Once Aamir mouths the dialogue, “Aapne sirf hamari wafaaari dekhi, ab hamari krodh dekhiye. Aapki company ki dhajjiyan udadenge”, you know the next scene? “Intermission”! It’s like taking you to the climax and leaving you when you got high!
I am sorry. But that was not expected of such a talented team. Everybody knows the story of MP, so the trick was in building up excitement in the already known story. The idea was right. The execution is all messed up! When the “Holi” song came, I was completely out of tune with the theme of the movie. I love India, I love Aamir, I wanted to love MP. These things completely let me down.
Mangal Pandey as a character in a hindi cinema would do well as the initial module in a movie on the War of Indian Independence. Or even better would be the same movie, edited properly, in a length of 2 hrs would make a crisp and slick movie. It still wouldn’t be an epic. The story is by itself weak to be an epic. To make an epic you need a story that holds the audience till the end of the story. Or else you need to be a story-teller with legendary qualities.
Sadly, Ketan Mehta is neither a good story-teller nor does he have an efficient story on hand. He has a great idea with him, but the idea is a good thought. Period. It was not worthy of being made into a ‘period’ film of epic proportions. And making a ballad out of it would probably have given it a different genre and hence maybe much more respect. KM is found hanging between making a ballad, a movie and an epic. He’s clearly confused! Having an idea in your mind for 20 long years, you just want to put everything you thought of onto the screen. This is what happens!
The same uncertainty is found in the music maestro A R Rahman’s score. Since ballad was the initial briefing we had a few songs. Then, we shifted to making a movie. So, the songs needed to be ‘commercial’. Mess-up in other words! Songs appear at every unexpected place! We are making an epic movie that’s going to have an International release under a famous banner! We shall make money with the background score too. A R Rahman is probably the best composer in the world at this point of time. His background score proves this point. According to grapevine, we should be having a release of the background score separately. Get ready to grab your copies!
Aamir Khan has now gone beyond the best performers of any generation. In a movie full of distractions, he is the only one to hold your attention! Rightly justifying the frenzied shouting that accompanied his name during the title credits! Apart from Aamir, the only other name that was cheered during the title credits was A R Rahman! Who says the music was bad?! Aamir is in a league of his own. There’s no point in trying to compare him with others because they share a surname with him! And there’s no point wasting ink on this Living Legend. He’s perfect!
Toby Stephens does a good job. His Hindi was unbearable. Everything else was just fine. Half of my time of watching MP was spent in collating the pieces my neighbour and I understood of Toby’s dialogue. There were many instances when my neighbour and I looked at each other for a moment and then realized he had actually spoken in English and there was no necessity for us to collaborate and understand that one. We had already missed the dialogue anyway!
I read in many other reviews that Rani Mukherjee did a good job! Good for her! And may I also take this opportunity to appreciate the reviewer’s patience and observation skills! I didn’t notice her performance much. I can now tell you the length and breadth of her cleavage to 95% accuracy levels. Oh I am so perverted! Yeah go on!
Tthe totally-out-of-place-song “Rasiya” having two girls fondling each other, the dialogues that the kothewaalis exchange with MP, the ‘purdah’ uthana scene during Rani’s introduction, the unnecessary kiss in the irrelevant love story of Amisha & Toby, led one of my friends to remark, “Abey yeh to Mangal Pandey nahi, Mangal Pondy* hai”!
[*Pondy is a slang word used to name a genre of movies that have sexually explicit material]
Jokes apart, the movie was good. Could have been better! But I will not watch it again.
Tomorrow: Sense of mission
