In the Indian legal fraternity, the names of Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan are well known. The first is a former Law Minister of the country. The latter is a senior lawyer and one of leading public interest advocates. And when the daughter and sister of the duo, Shefali Bhushan, makes a web series that is a legal drama it is bound to be compelling.
Shefali's web series (she has co-directed it with Jayant Digambar Samalkar) Guilty Minds has started streaming on Amazon Prime Video platform from today (April 22, 2022).
The 10-episode series, running to 50 minutes each, is a slow-burner, but contains all the elements that make such a series a compelling one.
Court details are so on point
Guilty Minds stars Shriya Pilgaonkar and Varun Mitra as combative lawyers. It also features Namrata Sheth, Sugandha Garg, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Satish Kaushik, Benjamin Gilani, Virendra Sharma, Diksha Juneja, Pranay Pachauri, Deepak Kalra and Chitrangada Satrupa in pivotal roles. The web series is produced by Karan Grover and co-produced by Antara Banerjee and Naved Farooqui.
The first season of the web series tracks different cases that range from a woman actor who makes a #MeToo allegation to a security person in a Naxal area whose murder is passed off as a suicide to the dilemma around driverless cars. There is also an ongoing case that links the entire season.
Shriya Pilgaonkar and Varun Mitra, as advocates, take on each other in a few case, and work together in some other. And both have contrasting backgrounds, but are friends from law school. And there is a romantic angle to their relationships, too.
Since it is helmed by a person with strong legal background, Guilty Minds gets the production design and authenticity of the courtroom etiquette and procedures spot on.
The director had said in an interview: "While dealing with the subject we tried to be authentic in execution. For us courtrooms are also characters in a similar way actors are in the series. We tried to get into minute details of every court. Be it Mumbai or any district one. Every court has some distinct traits and we tried to bring out them. You will not see the similar grand courts like you saw in films."
Guilty Minds, in the first season, has set the tone. And it allows us to look forward to the second season as and when it happens.
