Didnt Rise Upto Expectations. Review on Mangal Pandey - The Rising

Well, after watching the movie, all I can say is - Aamir, forget the past and look forward to 'Rang de Basanti'. I cant believe he let go of Swades and many more movies and wasted 4 years, for this movie. Put in short, this movie sucks. When so much hype is attached to a movie, we expect it to rise to the stature of a Lagaan or a Braveheart. Instead, we are treated to a shoddily directed movie, which irritates at times.

Mangal Pandey, for all our we know from our social studies text books, was a Sepoy who was one of the first to rise against the British army, and over the cartridge issue. Other than that, there isnt any more information about him. So, the story writers didnt have a very strong story from the start. No wonder there is an unwanted love story between Amisha and Toby Stevens, not to mention 2 totally unwanted songs (both following some serious situations)

Aamir for his part is real good. But unfortunately (this is my opinion) he doesnt suit the role of a great hero. He just doest have the stature or commanding physique, not even with those big whiskers and long mane. The rest of the desi characters have precious little to do. We really dont care for a Brit to be taking center stage in a patritic movie. Toby Stevens is the typical ''one good Brit who helps the hero''. Also, the movie has the same old evil Brits who beat up Indians, call them names and mistreat them without a cause. Ho hum, havent we seen a million movies like this?

Another let down is A R Rehman. Man, did he really compose music for this movie? The songs are so boring. For an extravagant venture like this, it is surprising the director compromised so much on the music front. And the less said about the direction, the better.

The movie doesnt give you the josh and spirit that we expect from climaxes of such movies. I was waiting for it to come, waiting for the last scenes where there are lots of people, shouting, British guys getting kicked back, patriotic and moving music in the background - and hey, the movie just ended before all that came......What a let down!!!

Well, finally, there are very few positives in this film (I can think of only Aamir's acting as one) If you think that you wasted the holiday by not watching the movie, dont worry, you didnt miss much