What do you do when you, accidentally, bang into someone on the road? Flee from the spot? Call for help? Dial the cops? Rush the victim to the hospital?

Pick up a newspaper and chances are you might glance upon a hit-and-run case only too often. ACCIDENT ON HILL ROAD, a remake of STUCK [Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea], raises a few questions in its own way. Perhaps, the intentions were right, but what eventually unfolds on screen isn't.

The problem with ACCIDENT ON HILL ROAD is that it loses focus after a point and that takes away the seriousness from the issue.

Sonam [Celina Jaitly] is a nurse who accidentally steers her car into the harmless Prakash [Farooque Shaikh], sending him flying through the windshield. Not wanting to jeopardize her future, Sonam, along with her drug-peddling boyfriend Sid [Abhimanyu Singh], chooses not to get him medical help, leaving him clinging to life in her garage.

But soon her psyche begins to unravel as the captor and captive are pitted against each other in a battle for survival.

ACCIDENT ON HILL ROAD had the potential to be a thought-provoking film that pricks your conscience, but what comes across is a half-baked attempt that runs out of steam soon after the intermission. In fact, the film begins quite well and a few moments as well as the twists and turns in the first half do keep you on the edge.

But the writing [screenplay adapted by Mahesh Nair and Siddharth Parmar] is shoddy in the second part and does not yield the desired outcome. The sequences prior to the climax are a complete downer, while the climax is the worst part of the film. The drama fails to become the nail-biting one that it ought to be.

Also, the assorted people that flit in and out of the story [the kid and his mom, the cabbie and the nosey neighbour with a dog] are half-baked characters as well. Pray, why were they included in the first place?

Mahesh Nair's direction is a shade better than the poor and sketchy script. Also, he is unable to involve the audience in the drama. Ravi Walia's cinematography is ordinary. The film has just one song [music: Raju Singh] - 'Nasha Nasha' - which is quite erotic.

Farooque Shaikh doesn't get any scope, frankly. One definitely expected more, since the veteran returns to the big screen after a hiatus. Abhimanyu Singh enacts his part well. But it is Celina Jaitly who pitches in a commendable act and catches you by complete surprise.

On the whole, ACCIDENT ON HILL ROAD will fail to make any headway.