One of the leaders of the rebellion against the British East India Company, Rani Lakshmibai bedeviled her land’s colonizers in 1858. The story of an insurgent Indian woman certainly seems timely in 2019. Too bad the new account of her uprising, “The Warrior Queen of Jhansi,” is as stodgy as a movie from 1958, if not earlier.
The film is the directorial debut of Swati Bhise, a Mumbai-born, New York-based dancer and choreographer. Her principal collaborator is her daughter, Devika Bhise, who helped mom and Olivia Emden write the script and who plays the rani (or queen). The younger woman even directed the last few days of shooting after her mother was hospitalized with pneumonia.
The Bhises surrounded themselves with pros, including actors Rupert Everett, Derek Jacobi and Jodhi May, as well as an experienced production team. The result is a film with striking locations and sumptuous visuals, undercut by choppy pacing, clumsy dialogue and ungainly exposition that includes unnecessary and bewildering flashbacks.
The younger Bhise trained extensively for the action scenes in which she leads female fighters against British troops. The movie’s battle sequences are credible, if not especially visceral. But most of the movie is devoted to talk, which sometimes lurches inexplicably among English and two Indian languages: Hindi and Marathi.
