Four years for a movie! 18 months to grow hair to get into character! And this is what you get?!
My pal and I were planning to catch a show of ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ at Devi Theatre (Chennai). Unfortunately, the regular route that I take has a place named ‘Melody Theatre’ that caters to the intelligentsia from Sowcarpet (a Marwadi dominated area in Chennai), who prefer movies like ‘Aitraaz’ to more meaningful ones like ‘Raincoat’. I was surprised to the see the place almost empty and two big red signs that said ‘Available’. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here I was, in front of one of only two theatres screening an Aamir Khan movie in its first week and tickets were available?!. We changed our minds and bought two tickets.
The movie started (and ended) with three bad actors on an elephant singing ‘Mangal Mangal’. In true biopic style, the movie starts off with the protagonist’s execution and flashes back to the events that sowed the seeds for India’s first war of independence. We learn of the friendship that starts between Captain William Gordon (played almost to perfection by Toby Stephens) and Sepoy Mangal Pandey as a result of the faithful sepoy putting his life in the line of fire to save the captain. We also get introduced to all kinds of ‘Angrez’ people, some egoistic masters and a few moderates.
Soon enough, we get to the crux of the matter. A new Enfield rifle is to be introduced by the British, the cartridges of which are lined with pig and cow fat. It offends the hindu and the muslim sepoys when they learn that they have to bite the ends off the cartridges to use them. Captain William intervenes and assures Mangal that the cow/pig fat thing is just a rumor, which is enough for Mangal to pompously march in front of his fellow sepoys and demonstrate the rifle. Soon enough he gets chided for it and when it is proven to him in no uncertain terms that the lining is in fact cow & pig fat, the Brahmin inside him is seriously offended and he rebels and starts what is now called in history books as the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ or the ‘First war of independence’.
Having realized the enormity of the task, the film-makers seem to have mobilized a huge budget for doing justice to the canvas, but have not put it to good use. Here are a few points to prove that:
The events centered on the 1857 movement have not been accurately chronicled. This has allowed the director to make up his own sub-plots, some of which have none or very little connection to the main story. E.g. Captain Gordon saving Amisha from Sati is just one such example.
The supporting cast is very weak including Rani Mukherjee, who plays Heera, a Nautch Girl who gets sold off (not reluctantly though) to a brothel. The only purpose of her character is to dance to a Mujra (a weak comeback by choreographer Saroj Khan) and to ‘do it’ with Mangal with an item number as the backdrop.
I would not have included this point if Kirron Kher hadn’t come on NDTV and told us that she was extremely excited about her ‘cameo’. She does nothing other than putting her cleavage on display and mouthing a few lines artificially as a madam who runs a bordello for the ‘Angrez’. Pathetic!
Amisha Patel’s character can be taken out of the movie and it will make absolutely no difference to the story. I still can’t understand how one can deliver such a lousy performance even while having to do so little on screen.
For some reason, in spite of Aamir’s firebreathing performance, Mangal Pandey only comes off as a cardboard hero. Most of us know that Mangal was a chaste Brahmin who believed in untouchability etc., but the character deserved better treatment especially when some of the events are fictionalized. Maybe that was the intention, to show that he was the spark, but not the fire itself.
All in all, this movie is not worth the value of the paper that the ticket is printed on, leave alone the value of the ticket. Usually when I am disappointed with a Hindi movie, I am with the minority as in the case of Aitraaz. This time I had a whole audience on my side.
A few words about the maturity of the Indian audience – There are a couple of scenes in the movie where a lady is breastfeeding a child. The audience’s behavior during these scenes was unmentionable. If this is the state of affairs in a Metro, what can you expect from more backward areas? If Indian cinema has a long way to go before we set standards, the audience have an even longer path to tread before they deserve better stuff.