Jail is a copy

Multiple National Award winning director Madhur Bhandarkar is known for his original scripts and real-life exposés. So to know that his upcoming film Jail is a rip off of a Brazilian film was a shocker indeed.

Jail is the hard-hitting, yet sensitive tale of an ordinary man Parag Dixit (played by Neil Mukesh) who finds himself inside the four walls of a prison due to a series of unfortunate events around him. The film is from his point of view and tells the stories of several other inmates.

But inside sources insist that Madhur’s film is not at all original and bears many similarities to Brazlian film Carandiru, which was based on the real-life experiences of Dr Drauzio Varella inside the dreadful state penitentiary in Sao Paulo, Brazil, while he was doing social work for AIDS prevention. There, he finds hundreds of convicts living under degrading conditions. The story culminates with the 1992 massacre, where 111 prisoners died, 102 killed by police.

Madhur however dismissed the rumours outright, saying, ‘Mine is an original film. All my films right from Chandni Bar to Fashion have been the fact realities and fiction. Jail is an original script.’

A spokesperson for the film also denied the allegations, and according to StarBoxOffice, the film pretty much runs on the lines of Edward Norton-starrer 25th Hour meets The Shawshank Redemption. A basic expose of violent prison systems, let's hope Jail is the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

What Indian audiences are waiting for is to see Neil Nitin Mukesh in the buff. That should be original; no body double will do. Madhur has a habit of snipping out the explicit stuff to suit censor scissors. He chopped out a kissing scene between two men in Fashion to keep the film clean, since the censors fussed.

Jail should break new ground with the footage of Neil doing the stuff that is so common in prisons. It is likely that the film will have shades of previous Hollywood hits (where else can Bollywood source inspiration from?), but if the rumour of the Brazilian film copy is true, then all the well, Madhur sure likes the publicity to keep the show running.