The Rising: Ballad Of Mangal Pandey [2005]

The Rising: Ballad Of Mangal Pandey [2005] Reviewed: August 13th 2005

OK after reading all these bad reviews, I thought I was in for torture, and considering I was watching the english version, I thought I was going neck-deep into double-torture!!

Did that happen? NOT at all! In fact, I'm so surprised and happy with what I just came out of watching... First things first - 'The Rising' may be no classic, but it's certainly a good film, and I'm really shocked at the negative response it's generally been getting...

The storyline is good, screenplay/editing was OK, though I did feel a few bits here and there were unnecessery, I feel if I were the filmmaker I would've edited, or at least speeded up, about 4/5 of the scenes, a good 15 minutes of the film could've been completely chopped.... I mean the film was wonderful, as it was, but had that slight change been made at the editing table, it could've been a near perfect product...

MUSIC: I absolutely LOVE 'Main Vari Vari', 'Rasiya' and the final version of 'Mangal Mangal' (I think it was the Aatma version)... Choreography-wise 'Main Vari Vari' was brilliant, I loved the colours and picturisation, really beautifully picturised. Song Placement: OK maybe the songs weren't so important to the screenplay, and could've been edited out... However, I enjoyed them and felt they didn't exactly 'pop out' even though they weren't truly needed either...

Costumes, and other styling (hair, make up...) were apt...

PERFORMANCES

Aamir Khan was awesome, he suited the role to the 'T' and did a wonderful job in portraying it... I was a bit disappointed in how his role shaped out though, I mean I expected it to be a far larger role but it was given as much emphasis as I expected... However, it was still a fabulous role for an actor to enact, and Aamir did complete justice to it, he was fabulous... He emoted extremely well through his eyes, and basically was great... Aamir Khan IS BACK with a BANG!

Toby Stephens was great, in fact he surpassed what I expected of him... I've seen him previously in Die Another Day, he was good there, but here he had a lot of the film resting on his shoulders, he was lucky to have actually been given just as much importance, and probably as much footage as Aamir himself!! A great performance, he seemed to have fitten very well into the 'Indian' way of filmmaking, I mean he didn't seem misplaced or anything, he did a great job. I felt the interaction between Aamir-Toby and their characters, was AWESOME, I loved the relationship they had, it was so sweet!!

Rani Mukerji was fabulous... After reading peoples comments I was a bit weiry as to what to expect from her coz everyone was saying her role was tiny etc... But personally, being a huge fan of hers, I was not disappointed... In fact her role was wonderful, and I'm glad she took it on (and equally glad she chose the role of 'Heera' and not 'Jwala')... She danced gracefully and looked awesome in Vari Vari! Yes it was a small role, but it was very fiery and powerful and definitely leaves an impact.. And I loved the ending they gave to her character, how she also fights for freedom

Amisha Patel looked beautifully sweet, but her performance left a lot to be desired. It was a small role and she did not even do justice to that, also I felt they didn't end of her role properly. I loved her entry scene though, it was a really powerful scene, one of the best in the film.

Others, including Kiran Kher, Mangal's coworkers, Coral etc were fabulous also...

Direction: was really good, I've never seen Ketan Mehta's previous films, but he did a brilliant, in fact outstanding, job in The Rising

LANGUAGE: OK so like I said, I thought it'd be annoying watching the english version...But actually IM SO GLAD I GOT TO SEE THE RISING & NOT Mangal Pandey!! It was perfect... The right amount of english, mixed with the right amount of Hindi... The characters who WOULD speak Hindi, spoke Hindi, but the ones who WOULD speak English, spoke English, it was great!

Other Notes: I loved how they ended the film with telling us the actual history, and showing us (what I assume) were real pictures and clips of the actual time...

Overall A very emotional film, full of happiness and sadness both... No, it's not perfect... No, it's not a classic... But it has a LOAD of great points, and I'd say it's definitely one of the better films I've seen this year... Thumbs up to the entire team for making it... Definitely a treat to release around the time of India's independence !!