It's like Lagaan, but with violence instead of cricket.

The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey (2005) is based on the legend of Mangal Pandey, rather than the historical figure. Depending on whom you ask, Mangal Pandey was either a brave martyr who kicked off India’s first War of Independence, or an intoxicated rabble-rouser who picked the wrong day to attack his superior officer; it’s very similar to the conflicting accounts surrounding American Revolution figure Crispus Attucks. The film takes the “heroic martyr” position and runs with it, which is probably a wise choice since legends have clear heroes and villains, while history tends to be terribly complicated.

Mangal (Aamir Khan) is a Sepoy, a soldier working for the British East India Company. Years ago, he saved the life of his superior officer, William Gordon (Toby Stephens), and the pair are now close friends and drinking buddies. Gordon is something of an outsider in the Company hierarchy, a Scottish Catholic surrounded by an English Protestant old boy’s club. He’s well aware of the Company’s various abuses, but can’t really do anything about them, so he restricts himself to making sarcastic comments to his superiors.

The pair have various misadventures. Gordon flirts with Emily Kent (Coral Beed), daughter of the local Company representative (Kenneth Cranham). Mangal saves a native waiter from a brutal beating at the hands of Hewson (Ben Nealon), and is rescued from a similar fate by Gordon. Mangal and Gordon also manage to rescue some love interests; Gordon rescues Jwala (Amisha Patel), a widow, from being cremated on her dead husband’s pyre, while Mangal rescues prostitute Heera (Rani Mukherjee) from an overly amorous Hewson. (Hewson is not a nice guy.)

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing. The company plans to introduce the new Enfield rifle. Loading the rifle will require the Sepoys to bite into the cartridge. Rumor has it that the cartridge is greased with pig and cow fat, making firing the rifle a sin for both Hindus and Muslims. Gordon urges his superiors to reconsider, but they insist that they will not bow to superstition. Gordon is told that the rumors are not true, however, and so he reassures the men. Based solely on his word, Mangal is the first to bite the bullet. Unfortunately, while there’s some question about the historical record, within the universe of the movie the rumors are absolutely true, as Mangal himself discovers.

The Rising is not a documentary, and doesn’t pretend to be an even-handed examination of historical realities. It’s a rah-rah historical epic, complete with clearly defined heroes and villains, grand passions, and many speeches about “FREEDOM!”; Braveheart in a dhoti, in other words. That said, I’m surprised by the amount of nuance in The Rising. The East India Company are very clearly the villains and Mangal and friends are just as clearly the heroes, but the film does not shy away from depicting some of the uglier aspects of Indian society of the time, and even Mangal himself isn’t perfect. He isn’t a saint like Bhuvan (from Khan’s earlier film Lagaan). Instead, Mangal is (at least initially) deeply concerned with his own caste status rather than the welfare of his fellow Indians.

(I’m also pleased that the movie managed to work in a cameo appearance by Rani Lakshmibai, my personal favorite legendary Indian freedom fighter and one of history’s actual warrior princesses.)

Aamir Khan is a great actor, and he easily carries the movie, investing Mangal with a tremendous sense of stature. If the film has a weakness, though, it’s in the writing. The dialogue is fine, if a bit overly dramatic, but the main plot takes a little too long to get started, and entire subplots abruptly vanish. Still, while the film can get sloppy, it is always watchable.