When posters of the film carry not the face of the actor playing the titular character but the star backing the project, you know exactly what you will get. 'Sarbjit' , based on the story of a man incarcerated in a Pakistani jail for over two decades, while his sister fought a dogged battle for his release, opts for high-pitched saccharine-laden melodrama : the star is equally high-pitched, leaving the actor to bring up the rear.

A lot has been written about the real life story of Sarabjit Singh, a farmer from Bhikhiwind, Punjab, who was tortured to death in a jail in Pakistan. While there was a theory that he was spy working for the Indian government, one cannot ignore the pain and trauma of what his family went through. Sarbjit's sister, Dalbir Kaur, tirelessly ran from pillar to post for many years to free her brother and was often a topic of debate at the Parliament.

Once upon a time there was Sunny Deol's dhai kilo ka haath, which uprooted a hand pump to scare off the entire Pakistan Army. Today there is Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's index finger. To be fair, Sarbjit is not the unrelenting screamfest that Gadar was, but Deol's film came to mind as the former Miss World held up her famous slender digit to intimidate an armed Pakistani security official. She did this right after delivering a loud speech to a Pakistani mob about how Pakistanis stab us Indians in the back while we bravely fight them face to face.

One day, after a bout of drunken revelry with his friend, he crossed over to the Pakistan side and was arrested. Those days, there were no barbed fences. Unfortunately for him, those fences came up three years after he crossed the line. Once captured, he was tortured for over nine months in a cell, which was more a cement block in which the inmate could only squat and sleep. Rodents were also thrown into his 'cell' and his flesh was bitten.

The film Sarbjit ends with a black screen, with many a line dangling in the air and many ellipses allowing them to do so. It tells us what the film's makers declare happened to the real Sarabjit Singh and his crusading sister Dalbir Kaur, what continues to happen today, and then, with much solemnity, it ends with a three-line quotation. The critic to the left of me thought it would be Rumi, the one on my right thought it would be Tagore, while I -- given the theme of suffering on both sides of the border -- expected it to be some wise Pakistani wordsmith.

Filmmaker Omung Kumar hasn't just dropped a vowel from the unlucky hero's name for his film based on Sarabjit Singh, who Pakistan alleged was an Indian spy responsible for carrying out bomb blasts in its territory, but he has also made the reel story a mawkish, screechy mess. The blame lies largely in the script which doesn't leave much for its actors to do other than excessively cry or scream or otherwise sit sulking.

Some stories deserve to be told with nuance and intimacy. You can't employ movie making formula when you're trying to depict reality and tragedy with authenticity. Once you get into heroics and slonganeering you allow drama and theatrics to take control over story. Sarbjit is guilty of doing just that. It desperately tries to make a hero out of Sarbjit's sister Dalbir and a martyr out of Sarbjit.

Omung Kumar has a solid plot in 'Sarbjit'. This biopic, unlike the earlier one he made on Mary Kom, is not of the triumphant survival saga of an underdog. This is a story of Sarabjit Singh, a farmer, who, on a fateful night, is said to have just wandered off across the border in drunken stupor, never to return home as he gets caught by the Pakistani cops, tortured and kept in jail for 22 years. It is a story of helplessness, of despair and of an unending struggle for Sarabjit's feisty sister, Dalbir Kaur.

The tragic story of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian farmer, who was convicted on charges of espionage by the Pakistani government, had moved every Indian a few years back and Omung Kumar, who made his debut as a director with Mary Kom, has brought the story to life on the silver screen with Sarbjit.

In a stark statement at a key juncture in the film, a striking dialogue on the question of distrust between India and Pakistan makes you wonder that, how long will the decades of hatred between the two neighbouring countries continue to fester. How many more innocent souls like Sarbjit Singh will have to go through inhuman incarceration for no fault of their own? The weight of questions gets heavier; the answers are ricocheting in an ever-changing-directions wind.

A Punjabi farmer, Sarbjit (Randeep Hooda) lands in Pakistani jail in 1990, after drunkenly crossing the border (there was no fence then, even though India and Pakistan had fought two wars by that period). He is wrongly accused by the Pakistani police of being one Ranjith Singh Mattu, a mastermind behind a couple of terrorist attacks there. In the meantime, his elder sister Dalbir (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) and his wife (Richa Chadha) are searching for him everywhere, but can't find any clue.

Sarbjit is based on the real-life incident of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian farmer who is based in Bhikhiwind, Punjab, near the Indo-Pak border. On a drunken night in 1990, Sarabjit (Randeep Hooda) crosses over the border and is caught by the Pakistani army. After being held captive, he is forced to take the identity of Ranjit Singh, an accused for carrying out bomb blasts in Lahore.

Omung Kumar's Sarbjit is a film trapped in no man's land. Based on a newsy real-life story, it takes cavalier liberties with reality. The result is a disappointment of monumental proportions. Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan is woefully miscast as the dogged sister of the titular character.