Poles apart

Friday evening... the much awaited release of the movie... Aamir coming back after 4 years... reviews stating that it would be the movie of the millenium... critics claiming that "The Rising" would go a step forward and win the Oscar... and what not...

The marketing and promtion campaign of "The Rising" was a splendidly done job -and it became the hottest topic in Media next to only the "Mumbai floods"...

Anyways getting back - we reached the theatre quite early - First day first show of a huge supposed to be blockbuste movie and Friday evening.. the combination was potent enough to ensure huge rush for tickets...

The film started with a jarring sound blaring across the speakers... "Jagooooo " - I was shocked... A.R.Rehman was sleeping while composing this or what... Besides that the start of the movie was quiet poignant and the entry of Aamir and the setting up of the whole plot in the first 15 minutes was decent...

Then out of nowhere Rani comes in the story and when we are just getting used to her "abrupt" entry... Amisha pops up... With these two sub-plots - Captain Gordon and Amisha, Aamir and Rani - the film keeps abruptly switching from scene to scene jarring the flow... In one of the few well-shot scenes in which Aamir gets really emotional as he has just shot a fellow Indian, in a second a mujra starts in which Rani is dancing and I am like - what the heck is going on... Songs are ill-timed and really slow the pace of the film - they seem out of context and out of music - pretty sad album by Rehman...

And if you are bored and try catching some sleep, that irritating "Jaago" song which is played many times will wake you up - I guess Ketan Mehta noticed that many people slept during the premiere and hence decided to play this song every 15 minutes in the movie to ensure that people do not go into a deep slumber...

The reason for Mutiny is pretty decent because it is exactly what is etched in history but then all of a sudden, lot of characters (kings and queens) pop in and everyone is colluding and ask these Aamir and his fellow sepoys to plan a grand scale war etc...

The second half is a shade better. The British get hang of the plans of rebellion in the sepoys and try to nip the rebellion in the bud. They corner Aamir and arrest him and then it goes on... For total filmy scenes, Rani Mukherjee comes to the jail before he is to be hanged to marry to him - how senti - pathetic

When he is about to be hanged, Aamir shouts: "Aakraman" - why was this scene "Cut, copied and pasted" from Braveheart!! Can't there be any originality in the supposed prospect for Oscar...

Rani has a small role, Amisha has an even smaller role and Aamir also does not seem to have a good role and anyways he does not do justice to his role. Funny thing is Aamir does not stand out as a main character which is quite unlike his earlier movies where he becomes a central figure just by his power packed performance... The Englishman who plays Captain Gordon seems to have the meat of the role and is the only person who has really done a good job... At the end of the film, I was telling my friends - It should have been called "Goron Pandey" instead of "Mangal Pandey"...

After seeing "Lagaan - which I feel was a really beautiful movie - I had expected a lot from "Rising" - but in the end I was really dissappointed.. I came back home dejected, lighter by 10 dollars and wiser - I made a resolution of not "Banking on Media hype and Reviews before going to watch a movie"

Sorely dissapointed with "The Rising" (I can see its box office collections only "Falling") all I can say is that "Lagaan" and "Rising" are poles apart...