Detailed Synopsis of Mangal Pandey. Review on Mangal Pandey - The Rising

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it. –Malcolm x

Mangal Pandey, Much Awaited Movie of the Era.

Hopes were running high.

The reason was Aamir’s movie after such a long time…

Mangal Pandey, the Sepoy of 5th company of 34th regiment was the first Indian to spark the light of fire of freedom to burn in every heart of Indian who were oppressed and abused.

The story is not a truly based on history but it’s a blend of real and fictitious characters.

The story starts off quite well...Showing Mangal Pandey (Aamir) shackled in chains and going to be hanged, and then a flashback in time taken by his English friend Gordon (Toby)…and the story begins, the story is all about friendship, trust, Love , Loyalty, Betrayal, Religion, and Freedom.

Friendship: Friendship needs no Color, Race, and Religion. This is portrayed in this movie… a White and an Indian hanging around and having fun their friendship is build upon care and trust …one of the nicest parts shown in this movie.

''I drink to your health when I'm with you. I drink to your health when I'm alone. I drink to your health so often. I'm beginning to worry about my own.''

Trust: Trust is blind…and the other option is none. We can see this when Mangal Pandey is shown chewing off the cartridge with his teeth after trusting his Friend and leaving all his doubts.

Love: Love is Mess….. Huh! What the hell is this doing in this movie??....Still the Love shown in this movie is like infatuation and not love. Heera (Rani) is shown as a prostitute who is saved by Mangal and he is a Hero, a typical Bollywood film.

Loyalty: Loyalty is Sacrifice…this is shown brilliantly how the Indians would fight and defend the East India Company with the cost of their Blood without knowing they are Exploiting and Humiliating them all the times…Indians were called “Kala Kutta”(black Dog).

Betrayal: Betrayal is lifelessness… this is one of the best parts of the movie. When the Indian Sepoys find out that the cartridges they were chewing were actually made of Pig, and Cow fats. This is acted brilliantly by Aamir… when he feels the pain and lifelessness and sits on the stairs of temple and thinks himself as an untouchable.

Religion: Religion directly relates with lifting the morale... this is shown but both Hindu and Muslim sepoys who refuse to fire with the controversial cartridges and gave them enough courage to stand against the E I Company.

Freedom: Freedom always confuses and it’s desperately difficult to achieve but it’s the last minute water that a person asks in his deathbed… shown brilliantly in this movie… after bearing lots of atrocities Indians long to set themselves free from E I Company.

The Good and the Bad of the movie

Good

Showing the Mighty powerful and corrupted E I Company’s ultimate goal was profit, atrocities and bully ness on Indians. They treated Indians like dogs and kicked on their face and burn their houses, kill the innocent children, old people and woman for sake of showing the might. And the Indians were killed by Indian itself. Where the ratio between Indian and British soldiers were 10:1 in military

Also the quote mentioned in the movie “It’s a White man’s burden to civilize the rest…and we are bearing this without complains”….the racist English

The Cruel custom of Sati … it was touchy when jwala(Amisha) is been attempted to burnt on the pyre of her husband… and only good thing about the E I Company to make sati illegal.

The mujrahs,prostitution, and the customs and culture of that Era...like selling off girls in open market...

Also the one man standing part….where Mangal stands alone for fighting alone with the E I Company.

Bad

The movie is purely Fictitious and I guess it has little or nothing to do with the history. The story is manipulated and innovated in such extend that we can call it as a fairy tale ….once upon a time...1857.

The characters were wearing silk and fine fabric clothes some wore designer blouse and Sari’s too ….I guess Khadi must have been in Gandhiji’s time after 100 years

This movie could have been made in 3 months instead of so many years and Aamir could have worn the wig instead of growing it….. Could find anything that made me wondering…y the hell it took so long?

Also there were many cheap and unwanted scenes and character like the one of an Indian woman who breastfeeds the baby of an English woman.

Overall Mangal Pandey could be watched once…beware it drags a lots keep flashing ur face with cold water

I m a die hard fan of Aamir but he dint come up to the expectations…