FILM REVIEW: THE RISING (2005)
Producers:
Bobby Bedi
Director: Ketan Mehta
Cast: Amir Khan, Rani Mukherjee and Amisha Patel
Music: A R Rahman
Lyrics: Javed Akthar
Mangal
Pandey the sepoy has challenged his senior’s order to shoot opium
farmers who were agitating against the English East India Company’s
monopoly. As he is being treated, the sepoy meets a courtesan, Heera,
played by Rani Mukherjee. While the woman admires this young sepoy for
his bravery, he snubs her. Heera shoots back: “Sepoy saheb, we
prostitutes sell our bodies, but you sell your souls.” The courtesan’s
words stir the sepoy’s conscience. And Mangal Pandey turns a rebel.
The subject matter
is good but the burden of expectation sits much too heavily on Mangal
Pandey and the film merely risies to its moments.
In a British
chhavni, rebellion is brewing in unexpected quarters. New rifles handed
out to the ’sepoys’ have cartridges greased with animal
fat, unacceptable to both Hindus and Muslims. Only one white man, Mangal
Pandey’s commanding officer and friend, William Gordon (Toby Stephens)
stands up for local sentiment, but he is overruled. Furious and let-down
after being forced to bite the bullet; Mangal leads from the front,
becoming a beacon for other discontented satraps across North India.
Khan, shorn of the
effort he usually puts into his performance, looks more than ready to
fill Pandey’s scantily-documented shoes, but Ketan Mehta’s
narrative is flat. So is the movie.
Mangal Pandey, subaltern
historians say, was the first hero of the Indian freedom movement. Played
by Aamir Khan, resplendent in his pointed mooch and wavy hair, Mangal
Pandey is a reluctant but risible krantikaari, whose action of taking
on the British by the skin of his teeth in the summer of 1857 presaged
freedom in the autumn of 1947.
Mehta’s refusal
to exploit his wonderful material does Mangal Pandey—The Rising
in. It’s not just Aamir’s obsessive commitment to the role,
which he lived with for four years (both Lagaan, and Dil Chahta Hai
released in 2001). If s also the rousing story of one man, a British
sepoy, who dared to take on the might of the seemingly invincible Company
Raj, and revealed its chinks. Or perhaps, marshalling a large canvas
was expecting too much from the man who gave us those superb examples
of intimate story-telling, Bhavni Bhavai, and Mirch Masala.
The sets are too
reminiscent of Lagaan, minus the quaintness, and the characters are
too sketchy. Or was Aamir too big for him to direct?
As it is, Toby Stephens’s
sympathetic soldier is the only one who appears fleshed-out. Amisha
Patel’s fake take adds nothing to the ensemble, and, tragically,
Rani Mukherji has been reduced to seven and a half scenes, and two Devdas-like
dances.
Mearly
the long hair and moustache look, is not enough to make a movie hit.
If at all one must go, go for Aamir Khan.
RS
Rating: 6/10
Credit:
This review was submitted by Ankit Jain of Footprints.in.
They run their own movie Blog at DCECinemas.
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