Denied bail and, more frustratingly, a chance to utter a word in court in his defence for close to a year, a hapless Parag Dixit (Neil Nitin Mukesh) lets loose his pent-up anger, bashing up a rich kid whose VIP connections have worked in acquitting him in a hit-and-run case. The criminal walks free, the innocent is holed up in solitary confinement without food and water for days.

The scene ripples with pressure-cooker tension, Parag’s angst is palpable, the trauma on the face of every prisoner is chilling, the horror of spending 10 days in the “anda cell” is gut-wrenching.

Unfortunately, the rest of Jail is neither as hard-hitting nor as compelling. Madhur Bhandarkar has done it glitzier with Fashion and and grittier with Chandni Bar, but in Jail, the three-time National Award winner never really gets into the groove. The horror never really gets too stark, most incidents are a little too simplistic to make an impression and the drama seldom rises beyond a superficial level, giving the audience none of the Kafkaesque feel and thrill that a gravely themed film like this should have delivered.

The disappointment at the end of 140 minutes of Jail primarily stems from the fact that the film begins on a strong note. Neil’s Parag — by turns bewildered, shocked, traumatised and in denial — is shown being herded into prison along with dozens of others, the grim reality of spending the night surrounded by criminals writ large on his face.

So why does a ‘chikna’ and ‘chirkut’ like Parag — as he is referred to by cops and criminals alike through the film — find himself in jail? Circumstantially implicated in a drug bust by his flatmate (ala Bangkok Hilton) Parag’s hunky-dory world suddenly comes crashing down.

As days turn into weeks and weeks into months, faced with the extreme conditions in prison, where danger and crime lurk in every corner, a dazed Parag learns to adjust to this nightmare called life, even as he clings on to the hope of being free... someday.

Like his previous films, Bhandarkar takes time to build up the drama in Jail, the lacklustre screenplay by Madhur, Anuradha Tiwari and Manoj Tyagi being a major problem point. At no point of time in the narrative is the viewer plunged headlong into the events that make up the film. Parag’s anger and trauma is heartfelt — the scene in which he is brutally bashed up for a hint of rebellion is shocking — but somehow we don’t really feel his pain as much as Madhavi’s frustrations in Page 3 or Nishigandha’s helplessness in Corporate. Then there is Bhandarkar’s predilection to include vignettes of everything from the newspapers, from hit-and-run to Binayak Sen.

In the first half, Jail paints a picture of everyday life in an Indian prison — a fight for a mug of bath water, the inedible food, a strong underworld racket and, yes, sodomy. The depiction is real and detailed, but the drama hardly comes to life. Thankfully, the pace picks up post-interval, but Jail comes nowhere close to a Shawshank Redemption. Even the torture scenes felt so much more painful in New York. And all the hype and hoopla about Neil’s nude scene is reduced to a 10-second joke, so pixelated that it would put a yesteryear DD to shame.

If Jail works, it does so on the strength of a few performances. Playing the prisoner Nawab, who develops a soft corner for Parag, Manoj Bajpai turns in an understated act, making you wish that Bhandarkar had paid more attention to providing meat to this friendship, instead of peopling his narrative with unnecessary characters. As an underworld operative calling the shots from jail, Arya Babbar is commendable. As Parag’s supportive girlfriend Mansi, Mugdha Godse has little to do but shed copious tears and mouth “It’s going to be okay” at regular intervals. Jail rests squarely on the shoulders of Neil Nitin Mukesh and the rising star brings an earnestness to his character, tempering it with a feeling of horror and helplessness that tugs at the heartstrings, moving from hope and happiness one moment to depression and despair the next.