Ordinary film, extraordinary music
The pathetic condition in which prisoners, especially undertrials, live in Indian jails is well known. More than the length of jail term, the inmates fear the gangsters and the terrible behaviour of the jail authority.
The Indian judiciary system is under heavy pressure to provide justice in millions of pending cases. The undertrials become the prime victims of this delay and they keep serving years in jails without their case even being heard.
Sanju(AadarJa in) and Bin du (An ya Singh) are two such undertrials who keep waiting for another court date in the hope of getting bail.
However, this jail isn’t as bad as a real-life jail. After all, it’s a Yash Raj film, not an Anurag K ash yap or MadhurBh an dark ar one. The jailor Dhulia (Sachin Pilgaonkar), who keeps eating most of the time, is a weird mix of Sholay’s Asrani and Karma’s Dilip Kumar. Sometimes, he looks like an elderly gentleman who could be good at office politics, or a doctor who would write a false prescription just to make some quick bucks.
Dhulia floats the idea of a culture programme by the inmates that catches the attention of a minister. Featuring prisoners of different race sand backgrounds, this programme turns out to be a hit and now the minister wants to use this ‘Qaidi Band’ for his political canvassing.
Meanwhile, we get to heart he genius of music composer Amit Tr ive di, who is the real star of this interestingyet ordinaryfilm.His I Am India that the characters keep referring to as jail anthem is one of the finest songs produced this year. But it’s just the beginning, because you’ll forget the lousy script and sloppy dialogues for some minutes once another song Hulchul plays. Kausar Munir’s lyrics are icing on the cake with Trivedi stroking your sub conscious with his plectrum.
But once the song is over, what is left are some really disciplined prisoners attempting a jail break. Lame as a banana pizza, they couldn’t even generate enough sympathy for the audience to wait for another song.
Just when the film is expected to hit the perfect pitch, bad writing bursts the bubble of an innovative theme. The script looks so average in the climax that you wonder why didn’t make a film without any ending! The duration of only 122-minute seems much more than Faisal could handle.