A resounding thappad against sexual abuse
The first season of Criminal Justice dealt with the menace of child prostitution and drug trafficking while the new season of Criminal Justice : Behind Closed Doors, a Hotstar Special rolled out from Disney+HotstarVIP which is streaming now follows the same format of courtroom drama but with a different story and theme spanning 8 episodes which is nowhere connected to the previous season.
Story-line
The famous lawyer Bikram Chandra (Jisshu Sengupta) gets stabbed by his wife Anuradha Chandra (Kirti Kulhari) which is witnessed by their 12-year old daughter Rhea (Adrija Sinha). Anu gets surrendered to the police and confesses her crime.
Madhav Mishra (Pankaj Tripathi) who gets a new partner in the life Ratna (Khushboo Atre) has to leave her in the village immediately after the marriage to rush back to Mumbai to fight the case in favour of Anu Chandra.
There is more than that meets the eye as all family members and statements of witnesses are fully loaded against Anu but Madhav has his own knack of unraveling the truth behind this murder mystery with Nikhat Hussain (Anupriya Goenka) providing him the right leads in building the defence in favour of Anu.
How Anu can kill her husband? What compelled her to perpetuate this heinous crime? Why all the family members are against Anu and how Madhav cracks this mystery will be revealed only in the final episode.
Performances
Surely this is one of the finest performances from Kirti Kulhari. Her expressions and body language as panic-stricken depressed wife Anu are mind-blowing which are in sharp contrast to the characters she played earlier. This character remains etched in memories for a longer time than the rest.
Pankaj Tripathi as usual has done it again extending from where he left in the first season (sans the skin allergy this time). But one gets a feeling that his character is typecast without any deviation from his earlier outing as a result he could not make any groundbreaking impression in this season except delivering some catchy phrases.
As the plot is dominated by female characters, Anupriya has got more scope to do a lot including series of cross-examinations which she has done with great ease establishing herself again as the finest actor in town.
Mita Vashisht gets a minified role while Deepti Naval’s presence has provided the top-up but more emphatic performance has come from Kalyanee Mulay as inspector Gauri Pradhan in a conflict ridden role that get torn between duty and an obedient wife who has to meet demands of his police husband Harsh Pradhan played by Ajeet Singh who appears in a typical manipulative cop character.
Ashish Vidyarthi, Jisshu, Khushboo, Shilpa Shukla, Adrija Sinha, and Pankaj Saraswat have got significant roles which they have portrayed with great promise and perfectness.
Behind the scenes
The first 4 episodes directed by Rohan Sippy laid a strong foundation for the ensuing courtroom drama which was grippingly presented by Arjun Mukherjee from the 5th episode onwards. The marital rape and sexual abuse aspects were very well represented with a tinge of suspense and the credit goes to Apurva Asrani for the tighter screenplay which enabled the narrative to get slicker and sharper.
Though the jail scenes emulated the format of Orange Is The New Black, some of these blocks are superfluous and not required in any way to propel the narrative except in extending the length to another 2 episodes.
The background score by Sameer Phaterpekar gels well with the plot while the camera work by director of photography Tribhuvan Babu Sadineni is on track with the crisp editing by Abhijeet Deshpande and Sourabh Prabhudesai providing the extra edge to the whole narrative.
Verdict and Rating
Pink and Thappad among films, the web series The Verdict -State Vs Nanavati, and Illegal are some of the intense courtroom dramas made earlier. But Criminal Justice has an altogether unique plot that enumerates the exploitation and the amount of abuse the women undergo at the hands of their spouses which is a relatively different and volatile subject which was presented with a pulsating narrative without letting the intensity go off the hook.
Criminal Justice is a resounding thappad against sexual abuse exposing the atrocities of men which remain locked behind closed doors due to fear of shame and the desperate shrieks of hapless women being muffled by people who are blind to reality.
