What a jail bin machhli

Jail
Cast: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Manoj Bajpai and Ram Gopal Varma movie-type of clowns-`n’-clones
Director: Madhur Bhandarkar out of form
Rating: Two stars (there’s nothing here that you don’t know or have seen already)

Egg tu Bhandarkar! His angry young prisoner is thrown right into the dark-as-a-burnt-omelette baida cell. During solitary confinement, the prisoner claws the walls, gnashes his teeth, exudes glycerine and generally looks as unhappy as a kid denied a cookie. Sad is life, dearies.
Okay, okay, for heaven’s sake this is a Bhandarkar, Madhur Bhandarkar movie. Get real, appreciate Jail for being as rough, real and dammit, outspoken. Sorry guys, want to..however it’s anything but. It’s just not in the league of the eye-opening Fashion, Traffic Signal, Page 3 and Chandni Bar, which have their loyal admirers including the National Film Award juries. Yeah.
The director is best when he hurtles you into areas where the gloss-and-glamour-junkie filmwalas fail to tread. Dread. Here he doesn’t beyond a point. For sure, he locks you up in the depressing confines of a large prison, shot in Thane and Yervada jails. The visuals are unvarnished, no unnecessary top shots, no pretty daffodils blooming in the garden either.
So as the dialogue often asks..what’s the lafda chirkut?
Simply this: you’ve seen, heard and squirmed through prison atrocity flicks as many times as you’ve wolfed down popcorn. Crunchhhh. Like it or not it’s pouring cliches out here, from the hero finding the prison food ugh-ugh (did he expect sushi?) to the initial undressing parade. Mercifully the much- publicised nude parts – bodily parts that is -- are covered up by pixillated effects. Thanks.
Also, Bhandarkar whose stories-screenplays usually have an element of originality and knuckle-hard strength, in this case can’t prevent the viewer from flashbacking to similar situations from several prison movies: The Shawshank Redemption (the bond between two prisoners from disparate generations), Ek Hasina Thi (an innocent person forced to pay for another’s crimes), Midnight Express (sadism galore) and Teen Deewarein (the harebrained twists and turns in the plot).
And you can bet your last hundred bucks that there will be some gay-bashing: a couple of prison inmates go goo-goo on sighting the hero. Not to forget a shock tactic: an unmentionable tryst between two men in the loo. Woo hooo.
Well, ummm, old habits die hard and all that jazz bazz. Anyway, the focus is on this `chikna’ executive (Neil Nitin Mukesh), whose shifty flatmate happens to be a drug dealer. You knowthat can lead to an a la Bangkok Hilton. It does. Chikna is accused of complicity, dragged to jail and imprisoned. Moanwhile his mother (silent as a tomb) and girlfriend (Mugdha Godse, in a thousand make-up tints) wring their hands, hire a lawyer who’s plain walnuts and sit through court sessions where bail is refused again and again, and again. Pain. Scriptwriter-editor were dozing or what? The pace is slower than peak hour traffic.
In jail, our Innocent Chiknaji meets various stereotypes: a self-styled Mirza Ghalib (insufferable) , a drugged-out creepo responsible for a road accident and a politician holding court. Penty more: a finger flicking underworld don, a recent father who wants his kid to say “abba” (not the music group), and hello there’s Arya Babbar portaying a desperado with so much surma that he resembles a racoon.
Not to forget, not to forget in the crowded scenario there’s the emotionally contained jailbird-turned-prison-butler (Manoj Bajpai). Garbed oddly in buttercup harem pants, Butler sees a surrogate kid brother in Chikna and wants him to retain his ‘umeedein’ despite the odds. The parting scene between them, in fact, is the most sensitively executed moment in this Chandniless Bar.
On the plus side, there are some stray insights like street-dwellers committing petty crimes to find a shelter in prisons during the monsoon. The wind-up statistic about the possible number of ‘innocent’ persons languishing behind bars also hits home. Aah, how you wish the rest of this effort was in the same researched vein.
On the tech side, the cinematography is remarkably fluid. Anil Mohile’s background music tends to be obtrusive, frequently sounding very Godfatherish. The songs are nothing to hum about, no alas not even the devotional track by Lata Mangeshkar.
Of the cast, Neil Nitin Mukesh is as earnest as a Boy Scout, he’s methodical and controlled; there are flashes of an actor of tremendous potential here. Manoj Bajpai by holding his gaze – his eyes are like arrows about to leave a bow – is extraordinary. Jail isn’t. No way.