Jail: Movie Review

When I came out of Jail in Interval, the only question on my mind was, what am I going to write in the review? Well, that proves two things. The movie was just like a normal Madhur Bhandarkar movie and I had almost nothing new I could think of writing at the point. And, the movie wasn’t good enough to completely capture me. But then, thankfully, things got better in the second half and I had things worth writing.

One thing that is different about Jail than other movies of Bhandarkar is that here, most of the time goes in the title location. While Chandni Bar is not entirely shot in a Bar, Fashion doesn’t show the ramp all the time, and Page 3 doesn’t end up being a three hour party, Jail becomes the victim of its own bars in the first half and at one point I felt that there was nothing in the name of story that could proceed. But then, in the second half things come out a bit and you feel like there is a story when the movie gets ahead of Neil and moves on to Manoj Bajpai and Rahul Singh. And though the story of Ghalib looks like an extra, his performance and his bad Shayari get touchy at some instants.

There are four songs in the movie. While Milke Yoon Laga is good, Saiyan ve is OK and Daata sun le, the one sung by Lata Mangeshkar, sounds better than it is as it fits really well in the movie.

The good thing about Jail is that like all Bhandarkar movies, it’s real. In fact it’s more real than his previous movies which are a bit more far from common man. Here one feels a connection. Especially the way Neil gets caught, one gets the feeling that it can happen with anybody, it can happen to even you.

The bad thing, Jail has too less things that are unknown to you. Especially when compared to films like Fashion, Page 3 or Corporate, Jail suffers the disadvantage of being far more known to common man so you feel boring at times. Be it Jail’s cruelties or slow legal system, we have all seen it in various forms, from movies made on Independence movements to real life.

Coming to acting, Neil Nitin Mukesh has been good. Especially since he was quite in most of the movie, his expressions had to speak. And even if he’s not been half as good as Manoj Bajpai, he proves again that he’s more than just a cute face. Mugdha Godse is OK in her comparatively small role. Manoj Bajpai is superb. Be it his voice over or his speaking eyes, he has been good throughout. Arya Babbar is fine in his role while Rahul Singh looks better as he gets more to do. Jailer Chetan Pandit is OK. DJ Joe gets a bit too much. And as I said, Ghalib troubles a lot with his real bad poetry but has a few good ones too.

Atul Kulkarni doesn’t do a big voice over this time, but comes for a really small role. Though things look a bit dramatic at the point, he acts, or rather speaks, perfectly. Nasir Abdullah gets a role even smaller than Atul Kulkarni.

In short, Jail is a movie that has reality but you already know a lot of it. It’s not really good in the first half but pretty fine in the second. At a time it seems like the movie is procrastinating the inevitable, but then, things get better, though a bit dramatically. The fact is that Jail was never an easy film to make and though it’s not the best of Madhur, it’s worth watching for those who like to go for his movies.