A gritty reality show

Film : Jail

Cast: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Manoj Bajpai, Mugdha Godse, Arya Babbar, Rahul Singh, Chetan Pandit

Director: Madhur Bhandarkar

Madhur Bhandarkar has done it again. From Jail, one expected a gritty, hard-hitting and thoughtprovoking drama. Bhandarkar delivers all this and lots more. Before one starts drawing any comparisons, let’s make one thing clear – Jail isn’t The Shawshank Redemption. The only similarity is that they both tell the story of prison inmates. Other than that neither the storyline nor the treatment bear any resemblance.

Bhandarkar recreates the world of prison inmates as he tells the story of Parag Dixit (Neil), who has been falsely implicated in a drug case. The film comes to the point right away with Parag’s corporate career coming to a roadblock as he finds himself surrounded by inmates.

In trademark Bhandarkar treatment, numerous characters are fleshed outthe butcher (Manoj Bajpayee) with a mysterious past, a lower middle class man (Rahul Singh) who has committed a murder in a fit of anger, a gangster (Aarya Babbar) and a youngster whose car has mowed down half a dozen people. But the film’s core is still Parag.

It is Parag’s tale that succeeds in keeping the audience watching. The claustrophobic atmosphere in the jail barrack suffocates audiences as Bhandarkar never allows the film to go off tangent. Yes, the frequent journey from jail to court and then back without any results do turn depressing after a while. But this is where the realism sets in.

Instead of taking the routine Bollywood route about third degree torture, police brutality, homosexuality and inmate bullying, Bhandarkar maintains an unbiased point of view. Yes, the film shocks but more due to the emotional turmoil that Parag goes through rather than on-screen visuals. Especially notable are the scenes where Neil goes nude for a strip check. Through sheer body language and mannerisms, Neil gives an excellent account of himself. He depicts varied emotions from being subdued to sudden bouts of aggression to helplessness and then the final redemption. With Jail he surpasses his efforts in Johnny Gaddaar and New York.

Manoj Bajpai has a shorter screen time but shines nevertheless. Mugdha is natural as Neil’s girlfriend.

Aarya Babbar, who till now was struggling in Bollywood, comes up with his best performance so far. He is perfect. So is Rahul Singh, who plays the role of Ghani. Jail raises important questions about India’s prison system. Rather than taking sides, Bhandarkar states bare facts and questions whether an individual really deserves to live in misery until proven guilty?

Joginder Tuteja

One big goofy, comic joyride

Film: Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif

Director: Rajkumar Santoshi

If you’ve ever wondered what on earth is onscreen chemistry, here’s your one-stop allpurpose encyclopaedia on celluloid magic. Fasten your seat belts as veteran filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi pulls out all stops to do a wacky, goofy weightless comedy of characters who walk in and out of frames, leaving behind fumes of oldfashioned comic acts.

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani is a trapeze down the familiar romantic lane. The starting point seems to be Saawariya. A loud interpretation of Ranbir Kapoor’s character in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s on-screen opera, Prem in Ajab Prem… adores the girl next door Jenny. But she loves someone else. No it’s not Salman Khan, though in a tonguein-cheek homage to tabloid realism, Katrina meets her idol Salman, who drawls to the roadside Romeo Ranbir: “You’re behaving as if you’re making my girlfriend your own.”

As in Saawariya, Bachna Ae Haseeno and the recent Wake Up Sid, a major part of the narrative becomes a showcase for Ranbir’s skills as an all-purpose actor who can pull out any emotional response to the most sterile dramatic stimuli.

In sequence after sequence, written to spotlight the young actor’s virtuosity, Ranbir rises above the material given to him with gusto.

Even while mouthing corny, sappy dialogues about serving moong-dal ke pakode to his beloved or plucking stars from the sky for her, Ranbir makes the trite seem just right.

His phenomenal talent gets radiant support from Katrina Kaif, who gets better with every film. As the waif with a face so vulnerable and imploring, Katrina is at once haughty, feisty and flirtatious. She’s every man’s dream-come-true, so why not Prem’s?

Would Ajab Prem... have worked as such a sleek showreel for the besotted-boy-meetsabsent minded-girl’s tale without the same lead actors? The answer is an emphatic no.

The noticeably over-done comic situations include a cartel of goofy goons who pop up towards the end to join the party. In one laboured sequence of comicality, Ranbir has to wear Katrina’s bodice and pretend he wears such clothes comfortably to avoid exposing Katrina’s concealment in his home.

The above scene is among the many that Ranbir and Katrina essay with ease that makes Ajab Prem... a watchable potpourri of parodies.

This is a rare film that jumps over all the hurdles of cliched plotting and corny dialogues on the sheer strength of its protagonists’ charm and grace. The film wears a bright, sunny look. The location is an obviously papier-mache town filled with a benign bonhomie that doesn’t go beyond surface-level romanticism.

And yet, several individual sequences come alive to convey a sparkling potency. Check out the sequences where Ranbir and Katrina stammer under emotional stress both individually and separately.

Is there a better star-pair than Ranbir and Katrina in recent times? Maybe there is... But who cares. This one just makes you want to cuddle them.

Subhash K. Jha