’Mangal Pandey’ is a well executed world-class project in movie-making that unfortunately falls prey to a couple of afflictions endemic to such long drawn out endeavors i.e they acquire so many parts that the sum of their good parts doesn’t add up nicely to the whole, while the other parts drag them down negatively.

On the positive side, the mature handling of the subject at hand, without giving room to pretensions and melodrama, is very noteworthy. There is an element of objectivity that stands out in how it depicts the people, the Britishers and the Indians, and the times in India in 1857, as it tries to put the Sepoy Mutiny or the First War of Independence into the broader context of the struggle for freedom. The transformation of an ordinary soldier from an indignant rebel, merely defying to use a new rifle cartridge, to a committed revolutionist who is ready to die for freedom, is handled very deftly with precision in the script and depth in performance. With its convincing and quiet narration of the events and the practices that were prevalent, the movie presents many moments of serious reflection, not the least of which is to do with the dichotomy between the sense of umbrage the soldiers entertained when asked to bite cartridges made of animal fat, and the sense of obedience they demonstrated in executing orders to shoot their own brethren. This contrariety of values, by the way, gets referred to, very pithily, as ’selling one’s soul’ by Rani Mukherji’s character of a nautch girl in the movie. You also wonder how easy the political and religious divisions and the severe practices of casteism and untouchability may have made it, for a private enterprise to practice ’divide and rule’ for 200 years.

Ketan Mehta deserves every credit for putting together a global team in pulling this off. The dialog, including a good portion that is presented in English, is very crisp, and the performances are very natural and spirited. Aamir Khan and Toby Stephens give a very laudable portrayal of Mangal Pandey and William Gordon. The photography by Himman Dhamija is impeccable.

On the negative side, there is enough spurious content that is pasted-on which hurts the flow and robs the movie off its honesty and sense of purpose. The music is very uninspiring and doesn’t match the sobriety and solemnness of the setting. Where you expect a tune like ’Aie Mere Watan Ke Logon’ to tug at your heart strings in homage to the sacrifice and the heroism, you get the irritating cacophony of a chorus that goes ’Mangal, Mangal....’. Sadly, AR Rahman, the maestro is totally out of his element here.

On the whole, Mangal Pandey, is a good exercise in mature cinema.

Plot Revealed In The Review:	Not revealed
Best to watch with:	Family
Movie Genre:	No Comment
Best part in the movie:	No Comment