Guilty Minds review: A courtroom drama big on ideas and emotions

Sugandha Garg and Shriya Pilgaonkar as Vandana and Kashaf in 'Guilty Minds'. (Image: Amazon Prime Video)

Guilty Minds, a courtroom drama series that dropped on Amazon Prime Video on April 22, is one of the best in the genre to have come out of India—adept at teasing out the complexities of both the law and the society that produces it.

Created by Shefali Bhushan, who happens to be from one of India’s most formidable families of legal minds—she is the daughter of lawyer and former law minister Shanti Bhushan—has created the show, along with co-writers Manav Bhushan, Deeksha Gujral and Jayant Digambar Somalkar (also a co-director).

Also read: Shriya Pilgaonkar on courtroom dramas: "I enjoyed 'Jai Bheem'. And 'Court' is a very authentic representation"

Although there have been notable examples of this genre from all over the world, including In the Name of the Father (1993) from the UK and Chaitanya Tamhane’s compelling Court (2017) from India, among several others, the courtroom drama or trial films are as innately an American specie as the Western. Great American examples are numerous—several of them mediocre compared to, say, Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957) or Aaron Sorkin’s recent The Trial of Chicago Seven (2020). Crucial to the genre’s American identity is the belief in democracy, freedom and the sanctity of law. In India, where judicial procedures are often long, capricious and prone to be afflicted by systemic corruption, the judiciary is particularly great fodder for stories. Guilty Minds uses that opportunity wonderfully.

A slow -burn narrative, each of the show’s 10 episodes tackles one particular case that pivots on a subject that resonates with the present age, while maintaining a common thread with two cases that involve the show’s principal characters. A big theme that emerges is that of technology gone rogue—an engineering student’s murder of an Uber driver is as much a violent repercussion of his addiction to video gaming as a warning about how technology can have dangerous implications for fragile psyches fed on isolation and lack of validation.

The cases have immense potential for social commentary: Copyright infringement; perils of an audacious automobile invention, a driverless car, plying Delhi’s roads; injustices related to water shortage in rural Maharashtra; and the abuse of genetic testing for sex determination in fertility clinics, among others. But the show’s strength and indeed its winning trait is Bhushan’s ability to show authentic legal procedures, while mining the personal trials and predicaments of its characters. The professional often feeds off the personal.

Actors Shriya Pilgaonkar and Varun Mitra lead the cast. Kashaf (Pilgaonkar) and Deepak (Mitra) are classmates from law school with a history of unrealised romantic attraction. As lawyers, they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Kashaf, daughter of judge Munawar Quaze (Benjamin Gilani), runs a firm that takes up lost causes along with her hard-nosed partner Vandana (Sugandha Garg), who is less idealistic and virtuous than Kashaf but with the same zeal to nail criminality in the garb of social acceptability and convention. Deepak works for a legacy firm Khanna & Khanna Associates with high-profile clients, run by its formidable patriarch (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). The family’s scion Shubhrat (Pranay Pachauri) is jealous of Deepak’s sway over the firm. Deepak and Kashaf build up a convincing tension between them on and off the court. Kashaf’s personal history in the form of a family secret comes as much in the way of their budding relationship as their ideological differences.2

Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Shriya Pilgaonkar in 'Guilty Minds'. (Image: Amazon Prime Video)

Corruption, familial and generational trauma, sexual identity, sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement, and the limits of technology in defining human life—Guilty Minds tackles a gamut of issues, while keeping the momentum of a palpable suspense throughout, despite its languorous pace.

The cast is proficient, with the lead pair of Mitra and Pilgaonkar channeling and sustaining signature traits, body language and worldview. The rest of the cast has some standout turns, which includes a compellingly realistic and mature performance by Sugandha Garg. Satish Kaushik, Namrata Sheth, Girish Kulkarni, Karishma Tanna, Suchitra Krishnamoorti, Sukhita Iyer and Deepak Kalra make their mark in smaller, but important roles.

Guilty Minds is big on scale, ideas and performances. Technically not at par with the best of shows on OTTs, but it is finely balanced on matters of the head, heart and our collective sense of morality and justice.