Mangal Pandey: Aamir Khan too short to Rise. Review on Mangal Pandey - The Rising

I was looking forward to seeing Aamir Khan after four years. I had good memories of him. For example, ''Lagaan'' was a simple story, but was made brilliantly! It made you laugh, cry, and brought out the patriotism in every heart. And you LIKED Bhuvan and his spirit! You wanted to know him, hug him, cheer him on and join his team. Here, I did not want to hug Mangal. Actually, I want to slug Mangal.

The story is quite simple. It is about the time of the British Rule, and the East India Company, which rules a village. It is about the British mocking the Hindu faith and their unfair and often cruel treatment of Hindus. It is about a village man, Mangal, a British sepoy, who trusts that his masters, the British, would not lie to him. Mangal is very good friends with one of the British members of the East India Company, Gordon. Gordon spent a large portion of his life in India and is thus very attached to its people, expecially to Mangal. Gordon himself does not realize the unfairness and cruelty of his British colleagues towards the Hindus, and thus keeps convincing the Hindu sepoys that the Company is looking out for them. ''The Rising'' comes when Mangal realizes that the British are completely fooling the Hindus and what their reality is...I leave the rest of the story for you to see.

Let's talk about characterization and acting. Mangal Pandey played by Aamir Khan...Hmmm... Something is not right here... Either Aamir was not right for the role or the characterization was just not developed. You just did not ''feel'' for Mangal. He was robotic. And lets be honest. The look of a character is key. We loved Aamir's look as Bhuvan in Lagaan and Aakaash in Dil Chahtha Hai. See, let's face it. Aamir is well...small. He is a small, ''chikna'', very cute and boyish sort of a dude. The whole macho long hair, beard thing just makes him look yuck. To me personally, he was kind of repulsive, especially when he does his little head banging dances in some of the songs. He looks like the missing midgit member of Metallica. Basically, the character development was definitely NOT upto par.

Rani Mukherjee as Heera. Well, she did the best with what she got. She was a prostitute and played a prostitute. Nothing great about Rani here. I am a big fan of Rani, especially after Black and Bunty aur Babli. She just did not stick out here. The only thing that stuck out about her was her unusually large bust. A little toilet paper stuffed in the right places goes a long way... Amisha Patel. Amisha has been RAVING about herself (as usual) in this movie talking about her own natural no makeup beauty and blahhh blahhhhh...role of a lifetime...blahhhh blahhhh blahhhhhhhhh. So she is there in all of three scenes with Gordon. To me, she just came across as a ditz and is completely wasted in the movie. She plays a young girl, Jwala, whose very old husband dies and she is forced to follow the ''sati'' ritual. Gordon rescues her, and falls in love with her. The love between her and Gordon should have either been developed more, or completely cut out. The whole angle was just kind of thrown in to the movie.

I think the guy who played Gordon did the best job in the movie. His Hindi was great for a Britisher (unlike the usual dubbed Hindi on foreigners). His character was also the most etched out, and you actually ''felt'' for him. If anyone deserves any sort of award for this movie, it is this guy. I can just see it. The new Filmfare category: ''Best Debutant Hindi Speaking British Male''. Seriously though, he was very good! And the best part was, though he was British, he actually even THOUGHT in Hindi! Mindblowing!

The music was just awful. Rehman's music is usually genius, and this time it was just terrible. Over that, there were too many of these horrible songs and they were completely out of place in the movie. By the way, what was up with the very bad ''lesbian like'' song with the two dancing females? Something was a bit wrong with this song... A little too much female to female touching... And this is where Aamir Khan jumps in like a hairy, head banging mouse. Horrible. There is one song that is repeated at the beginning and end of the movie, ''Jaago Re''. Well, I know why it was repeated at the end, to awaken the sleeping audience.

If this movie does well, it will do so only because it was a patriotic film released near Independance Day. To its credit, it has a few patriotic moments and clever dialogues. But mind you, VERY few. Mangal Pandey could have been a brilliant film. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The characters and the various story lines were left hanging. Nothing was etched out properly. To me, the Rising has Fallen.

Because Independance Day has just passed, I think it is my civic duty as an ABCD (and pure Desi at heart) to point out how far us Indians have come. Wherever they are, whether it be America, Canada, or Europe, Indians have excelled in a Caucasian dominated society. They did not sit around and complain about being oppressed. They picked themselves up and worked their butts off. Now, not only are they walking shoulder to shoulder with Caucasians, but are actually ruling the roost in a Caucasian world! Indians are CEO's, Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, excelling in Film, etc etc. You name it. The have done it and incredibly well! Keep going fellow Desis! Show them who we are! The Rising may have Fallen but the Desis shall keep Rising, wherever they are!!! Happy Independance Day!