Criminal Justice is back, and it’s a knock-out

Applause Entertainment deserves a round of applause for going into Season 3 of their legal drama Criminal Justice without fumbling over the plotting characterization or, most crucially, the red herrings. From Episode 1, Criminal Justice: Adhura Sach displays an exceptional restraint over its storytelling structure, giving to each episode a kind of free-flowing momentum that doesn’t seem artificial or simulated. This time it is a juvenile 17-year-old murder-accused Mukul (played by the well-clued-in youngster Aditya Gupta) whom our lawyer-hero Madhav Mishra, played by the unerringly involving Pankaj Tripathi , must defend, although the boy seems stubbornly indefensible. All evidence points against Mukuul. And the sharp public prosecutor ( Shweta Basu Prasad who deserves to be seen more often) isn’t allowing Madhav even a breath of respite. Here is a classic case for a dramatic buildup. Director Rohan Sippy (long time no seen) doesn’t let go of even one opportunity in the script to hold our attention in a vice-like grip. I must say Pankaj Tripathi grows organically into his lawyer’s role with very season. He imparts a refreshing casualness, not to be mistaken for nonchalance, to his part. The rest of the cast particularly Aditya Gupta as the youngster accused of slaying his celebrated stepsister Zara (Deshna Dugad) and Swastika Mukherjee as the accused’s harassed mother, are sometimes excellent, at other times, a little out of it, depending on how concentrated Rohan Sippy’s directorial acumen is. So how does Season 3 of Criminal Justice compare with the first two seasons? I would say the new season manages to go beyond the other two seasons in the pursuit of an engaging thriller perched on the legal theme. When the first season of Criminal Justice had come to us in 2018, I was hooked. This, despite having seen the BBC series of the same name and also the HBO film The Night Of in which Riz Ahmed played the cabbie who ends up in bed with a troubled female passenger and finds her dead next to him the next morning. The always-interesting Vikrant Massey slipped into Riz Ahmed’s role, played by Ben Whishaw in the original BBC series. All three were extraordinary in portraying the traumatized murder accused who is actually a victim. We already knew the plot. But we wanted to see how the adaptation had moved away from the original BBC series and the HBO mini-series. Three seasons on the line, Criminal Justice never falls short of expectations. There is an admirable fluidity in the storytelling While every actor is in-sync with the dark, gripping mood of a crime that isn’t as simple as it seems, no one gets it better than Pankaj Tripathi. Playing a down-market lawyer slumming it out at police stations pimping for desperate clients, Pankaj brings to Madhav Mishra’s character a moral centre in spite of his seeming dissipation. It is an astounding performance filled with a sense of desperate anxiety and squalor. What Criminal Justice tells us about the subverted judicial system is far more relevant than the ‘thriller’ intentions that play out on the surface of this edge-of-the-seat crime drama Season 2 of Criminal Justice was every bit as riveting as Season 1 . What I loved about Season 2 was that it pulled none of the stereotypical stunts of a suspense thriller. No annoying red-herrings, no false leads and no attempt to mislead us. From the start we know Anu played with a bridled ferocity by Kirti Kulhari , is guilty of murdering her perverted sadistic husband. The question was not a straightforward one of guilty/not-guilty. Criminal Justice has made a habit of redefining the precincts of justice.

One of the more interesting story highlights is the low-level lawyer Madhav Mishra’s relationship with his neglected newly-married wife (played by a refreshingly unspoilt new actress Khushboo Atre). Of course, Madhav respects women. But unknowingly he has fallen into the trap of playing the traditional role of the domineering husband who dictates every move his wife makes by pretending to give her the freedom to do what she wants until she breaks out with a flourish that hits Madhav and us in the solar plexus. Madhav’s marital metamorphosis has its roots in Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar although I’m pretty sure this couple has never heard of Ray or his masterpieces. Season 3 of Criminal Justice doesn’t dither in its dramatic progression. Written in a rapidly moving stream of crime-centric consciousness, the series, like its lawyer hero Madhav Mishra, never judges its characters although the show is all about judgement and justice. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram