Excellent, a Must See

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

'Bandit Queen' was one of Shekhar Kapur's final films before he ventured into Hollywood. Due to its subject matter and very graphic portrayal of rape and humiliation it was considered to be one of the most controversial Indian films and was even banned in the country. The film tells the story of Phoolan Devi in her earlier years (before she became a politician). Even though the film is said to be based on accounts written by Devi, the Bandit Queen herself was disappointed by the film and stated that it was riddled with inaccuracies.Like most of Kapur's movies, the execution is first rate. The raw dry landscape is captured stunningly. It looks beautiful but at the same time very real. The art direction also brings out an authentic earthy quality of the village and its dwellers. The narrative structure and cinematography are solid and the pace is well.The rape scenes are disturbing, especially the gang-rape and the scene that follows where humiliated Phoolan Devi is stripped off her clothing and exploited in the village by her assailants. The sequence provides shock value but not in a gratuitous way.'Bandit Queen' has some remarkable performances. Nirmal Pandey, Saurabh Shukla and Manoj Bajpai are excellent. Govind Namdeo is chilling and hateful in one of his sleaziest roles to date. However, this is Seema Biswas's film. The actress performs all guns blazing in this career defining role. She wonderfully moulds feistiness, vulnerability, anguish, despair and strength in her character. It has me wondering why she hasn't received more of such meaty roles.I can't comment on how much of it is based on what really happened but 'Bandit Queen' is an exceptionally well made film that tells a harrowing story of a crucial figure.

Irrespective of the accuracy of facts, Bandit Queen is a true story, its true because the themes it deals with hold as much truth today as they did way back in 1994. This movie is violent, powerful and thought provoking.The protagonist is a woman of flesh and blood, whose adversity brought out the best(or worst) out of her. Keeping the subjectivity aside, there is no doubt that Phoolan's character from a young girl of 8, who is married off by her father to clear a debt(pun intended), to a gang leader who goes on to become a leader of the lower caste, has evolved into a champion in her own right. Her portrayal is so powerful that the viewer is even willing to forgive her for a massacre.I can understand if the western audience is not able to appreciate this masterpiece, Bandit Queen needs to be 'studied' in the Indian context, and not just checked out in stereotypes. I may not be able to sell it on its universal appeal but its certainly a must watch for the Indian audience, its a shame that the movie had a delayed, overtly censored release in India.Bandit Queen is the story of a woman who fought against two odds in India, being a woman and that too a lower caste, her rebellious nature and inability to just give in caused her the most horrible experiences in life, which only went on to strengthen her into a self proclaimed goddess. She responded to violence with violence and dint become the submissive woman society wanted her to be. Call it divine justice or judiciary failure, had she killed a single person she would have been hanged, she killed 24 and got revered, respected and glorified.P.S # Whoever found her character "psychotic", needs to be sodomized at 8, gangraped by 10 men at a go and paraded naked. Then they should be asked- How normal do they feel?

It may interest people to know that this film was made without any recourse to Phoolan Devi herself and, when she did finally see parts of it, was so enraged that she announced that the film was not to be shown in India or she would cover herself in petrol and set fire to herself. I do not know whether it was shown at all or not, but given her standing at the time as a rising politician, I doubt it. Since then, I saw a report that she has been ousted from office and charged with further crimes from her Dacoit days, and has gone into hiding as a result.Her own concerns aside, this is an excellent film, made all the more so by its refreshingly brutal approach; none of the rose-tinted melodrama one might expect from a typical indian film. It should be stressed that concerns about how feminist the film's messages really are and the like are essentially irrelevant: it's a true story. Her misgivings are, it seems, not with what is depicted but with the way in which the film depicts her.

This movie IS a great movie, because it is well crafted, taut and keeps you glued all the way through to your seat....HORRIFIED. However, it is a very one-sided story. It shows Phoolan to be a wonderful, chaste woman who was always victimized and is in that way a typical bollywood portrayal of a wronged woman who rises from the ashes of her humiliation to wreck vengeance on those that wronged herBesides, I am not entirely convinced about making a movie about a real, living person who has been through hell and is forced to relive it just because a movie director thinks it is a story worth telling. All in all, a typical MASALA movie.