When, within a short while of the film opening, you start casting about for something to hang a peg on.
I spent most of ‘Rangoon’ searching for the film. Multiple threads make it up: it is 1943, the British are fighting Hitler, and are up against the rising tide of Indian freedom fighters, split between Gandhi’s pacifism, and Subhash Chandra Bose’s militarism.
It’s a heavy slice of history for anyone to unpack, and film gets tangled in superimposing a love triangle on the time and place. Post-interval, it battens down, and focuses on advancing the plot, such as there is, but overall ‘Rangoon’ remains a disappointingly patchy and disjointed effort.