by now a mandhur bhandarkar film has come to signify a startling wealth of sociocultural dynamics not all of them done in depth but invariably done in shades that leave us stunned by their immediacy and resonancethe shades in jail are not quite as flamboyant as what we saw in bhandarkars last film fashion or as acerbic as page 3 or as lyrical as chandni bar jail is bhandarkars most straightforward social treatise to date gone are the symbols and hushed relevances that characterize the directors narrative here he strips not just his hero but also his plot free of all adornment to give us a long disturbing sometimes traumatic dekko at life behind those stone wallsparag dixits journey from carefree goodliving to a prisoner sucks us in from the word go we enter the prison with neil nitin mukesh and leave with him the young actor takes us through his hellish journey into debasement torture and final selfrecognition with a stinging sense of authenticity his craving for girlfriend mugdha hardly there godses company almost becomes a throbbing character in the filmthe dynamics of prison life are not alien to audiences weve seen heroes and heroines being tortured prisons in films as varied in language and content as lock up and gumrah in the latter the wronglyincarcerated sridevi finds a saviour in sanjay duttin jail neils character slums it out relying on more experienced inmates and his own instincts to survive does he emerge transformed from the ordeal neil has worked very hard on conveying an authentic bodylanguage to his characters passage into the damned as his traumatic travel into the terror and trauma of a jailed whitecollar dude passed into the real of the irreversible the sense of pain becomes palpablethere are some strong supporting performances particularly manoj bajpai and to some extent aarya babbar characters who create an aura of dread and foreboding the mood of gloom is considerably brightened by lata mangeshkars evocative chant maula sun le data sun le which fill the polluted ambience with hopethere isnt much to look forward to for the characters who live in madhur bhandarkars jail quite often as a viewer you find yourself asking why we must suffer an ordeal that doesnt really yield a participative lessonin madhurs impressive oeuvre jail wont rank as high as page 3 or fashion too much of the plot pilots its proceedings into the province of the predictable the prisoners behaviour goes from the sordid to the noble depending on where the narrative pins them down the mood swings dont entertain they baffleyou cant fault jail on any count except its grim airless ambience the director has purposely made the goingson claustrophonic so that we are as suffocated by the prison walls as the protagonist the prison is authentically constructed by nitin chandrakant desai and kalpesh bhandarkar tries to see the truth behind the prisoners dare without probing too hardthere are no incisive insights into life in jail yes they all wear the