US 117m Dir: George Stevens Key Cast: Cary Grant
Gunga Din felt to me like one of those films which is objectively not particularly good yet has something about it which makes it really watchable.
The film is inspired by the Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name. Set in India under British rule, it sees three sergeants of the British army, MacChesney (Victor McLaglen), Cutter (Cary Grant) and Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) tasked with investigating when contact with a British outpost is lost. The three men, and their detail including water carrier Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe), find themselves facing a thugee murder cult.
The whole film has a boy's own adventure feel. It's three British blokes getting up to larks and fighting people. The plot then isn't anything particularly sophisticated but the idea of the murder cult kind of works and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was heavily inspired by this film.
The element that works best is the way the three leads bounce of each other and there's a real sense that these are long-term friends. Whilst McLagen and Fairbanks Jr are great it's Cary Grant who is the star here, despite an often dodgy British accent. He's so watchable and likeable in this film, a bit of a rogue but all the more entertaining because of it.
Unfortunately the depiction of India is more than a little problematic here. Any film which implies that the British were right to be occupying India is immediately problematic. The locals in the film are depicted as either a bit useless or murderers. The whole thugee cult was believed to be historical fact at the time of this film but 21st century historians believe it to be a fiction. The whole concept feels like a xenophobic depiction of a religion the West didn't understand.
The other thing that really didn't work for me was Gunga Din (and not just because he's not played by an Indian actor). The whole premise of the poem is that Gunga Din laid down his life for a British soldier and the same thing happens in the film. The conclusion is the funeral of the water bearer complete with an actor playing Kipling reading the poem. It could have been a really powerful and moving moment but Gunga Din's character was largely ignored for much of the film and they could have made him much more integral to the plot rather than only focusing on the three British heroes. The result was a scene that felt like it should be emotional but just fell flat for me.
A problematic film which still retains a certain charm for it's lead characters and the dynamic between them.
Comments
Post a Comment