Guilty Minds Review: Shriya Pilgaonkar, Varun Mitra's authentic legal drama lets you sink your teeth into it

Guilty Minds

Creator: Shefali Bhushan

Directors: Shefali Bhushan, Jayant Digambar Somalkar

Cast: Shriya Pilgaonkar, Varun Mitra, Namrata Sheth, Satish Kaushik

Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video

The Indian streaming space has seen the rise of several legal dramas over the last few years. From Criminal Minds to Your Honour, courtroom dramas often offer filmmakers, writers and creators a range of themes and layers to experiment with. Guilty Minds is the latest one on the block to dip its toes in legal waters. Starring Shriya Pilgaonkar, Varun Mitra, Namrata Sheth and Satish Kaushik among others, it also features several other well-known actors in episodic roles.

Spanning across 10-episodes, Guilty Minds brings to life a variety of legal cases that affects people across class, caste, societal strata and otherwise. Creator and director Shefali Bhushan, who herself, belongs to a family of lawyers, the notable Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan, strives to bring riveting courtroom episodes with Guilty Minds. Each episode of the legal drama engages the audience in a new case with the show's main characters and their individual stories playing out across the season's 10 episodes.

From virtual reality and rape to water scarcity and artificial intelligence, the show fleshes out and builds interesting legal cases which move beyond the standard crimes. Shriya as Kashaf Quaze plays the upright pro-bono lawyer who hails from a family of lawyers and runs. Whereas, Varun as the hotshot lawyer Deepak Rana represents a big law firm with a client list that boasts the cream of the society. Kashaf and Deepak are front and center of the show as two young Delhi lawyers with opposite outlooks and approaches to their cases.

Having watched 6 of the 10 episodes, Guilty Minds opens with a rape case between a superstar actress and a filmmaker as it establishes its series' central characters. The first episode is possibly the weakest of the lot as Guilty Minds only grows from strength to strength as it goes along.

Shefali Bhushan and Jayant along with writers Manav Bhushan and Deeksha Gujral weave an engaging narrative that serves new legal situations every episode but still keeps the relatability quotient high with a strong back story of its central characters. The screenplay not only keeps you guessing and pushes you to join the dots but effortlessly portrays an intersection of politics, legal minds and ethics.

The show's strongest episode has to be the one when these hotshot lawyers travel to rural Jalna in Maharashtra where villagers are fighting a cola company plant. Right from the episode's background music, hard-hitting dialogues to its authenticity of characters and the court set up, it all simply stands out. Bhushan manages to strike a balance between these real-life cases and an absorbing screenplay.

In legal dramas, courtroom theatrics often overpower the script. However, Guilty Minds navigates this easily without ever going overboard. Shriya and Varun as Kashaf and Deepak impeccably carry most of the show on their shoulders but are also brilliantly propped up by an excellent supporting cast. Goes without saying, the show's casting is on point. Be it the teenager addicted to games, lawyers Girish Kulkarni and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, or simply two men fighting over a stolen bull in Marathi, Guilty Minds has the tendency to grow on you as cases get more interesting and individual character story arcs keep getting better.

With the Indian legal system being infamous for its snail-paced disbursement of cases, the speedy pace of each case in Guilty Minds might feel a bit disconcerting but not unrealistic. The creators try to dish out a gripping series with social commentary. Well, they definitely manage to achieve it, at least with the first six episodes.

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