Mangalaana Mangal..

I dint like it..
Not withstanding the fact that i sat in the second row (from the screen) far to a corner, feelin as though i was peeping into my neighbour's bedroom to catch some late-nite action show (wink wink)..the movie IMHO was far less insipid and amateurishly directed than I would have expected an Aamir Khan movie to be...
I had a lot of expectations that were partly quashed even going into the Ram-theatre look-alike cinema in Seattle. One humble piece of advice,never harbor the notion that theatres in America are all good,some suck outrite,I swear I even saw stained liquid on the floor that resembled either vomit or a bizarre combination of coke n tea on the floor very near where I was sitting. The audio was pathetic,and the screen itself looked dull leading to a more than natural grained look for the movie. I solemnly swear that I miss Devi,Sathyam..hell,even Kasi like crazy...
Newayz,in an attempt to shun further digression,the movie itself was a tad tooooo realistic and uncinematic to suit my tastes. I mite be unfair in stating that I was expecting more from the demi-god actor-par-comparision who is sooo super-selective about his movies;that he even makes the directors narrate the title-credits of the trailer of some other movie that plays during the intermission of his movie;before actually signing on the dotted line. But once he comes on-board,he - to quote his exact words,"simply becomes that character by just thinking like him,gets into the same mind-set as the character hez supposed to portray".

But its the truth,I was obviously expecting fact here to be as interesting as fiction (lagaan).
Some thoughts about the movie - again IMHO,

• Aamir Khan's first rate potrayal,I never knew how Mangal Pandey looked like,now I can never imagine him otherwise..
  
• The splendid portrayal of the angry,helpless English middle-class royalty General by Tob Stephens who is torn between being a loyal servant of the Brits and a loyal friend to Mangal..
• The well-conceived and expertly-executed scene where Mangal Pandey boldly walks upto the cannon and blocks it;thus raising his first opposition against British oppression. Tis such a pity tat such scenes are far-n-dry n scarce in this movie..
  
• The totally lackodaisical bgm score of A.R.Rahman,this is from a die-hard ARR fanatic. And the songs were pathetically picturized and super-inappropriately placed - ZILCH EFFECT WATSOEVER. The songs sound sooo much better,when you just listen to them..
  
• The predictable cinematic characters including a bad-ass english general-villan philanderer, an all-knowing,yet shunned and stupid-considered cross-eyed untouchable sweeper..
• The tiringly incessant use of the word COMPANY - soo much tat at one point of time,i envisioned Ajay Devgan and Vivek Oberai to sashay across the screen,brandishing a gun and cell-phone..
  
• Many bold scenes including some startling(Rani,the other Naach gals) and then some unwanted(Kiron Kher) revelations;the splendid one-liner by the fan-man :-); who wants to cool the HOT(pun-intended) english dame..
  
• The brave concept of projecting the female-lead as a prostitute,who remorselessly remarks to her beloved that she spent the nite with another man..
• Amma sentiment or rather nursing-mother sentiment being haplessly twisted to suit one's creative license in this historical as well..
• Amisha's super-sensitive portrayal of a hapless,helpless woman - her scenes made for some unintended and well-deserved humor on-screen..
• The well-meaning tribute to Braveheart in the final scene of the movie - to me,that seemed like the only place where this movie compared to the Mel Gibson classic..

If the intention of the director - Ketan Mehta had been to make a starkingly realistic movie that was as true to the legendary folklore that spawned Mangal Pandey, then I would consider his cinematic liberties unnecessary and a tad irrelevant as well. Bhagath Singh was far far better.
But if he meant to make an interesting commercial flick ( I am sorry but the unnecessary songs that had border-line raunchy picturisation leads me to believe so)...then sorry mate,you should have tried better. or better yet,shunned the writer who wrote the disaster of a movie called Kisna..tat movie was soo bad,that i even deleted the blog that i wrote abt it..imagine,if it aint even worth being published on this blog..:-)

Final verdict - the title of this post..