Love, Sex.
Money, Drugs.
Power, Rule.
Based on Criminal Justice by Peter Moffat, Indian series “Criminal Justice” streaming exclusively on Hotstar directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia and Vishal Furia brings out some of the many obsessions of us humankind and just how deep we can drag ourselves into them. The storyline revolves around the degree of hastiness and casualness with which youngsters step into some wild & messy decisions, the modern lifestyle of young people, their perspective of right or wrong and their way of doing certain things. The carelessness and recklessness which is generally the standard bar against which millennials take decisions, often unveil the upshots later in life, sometimes bringing life down to dust.
Vikrant Massey plays the role of Aditya Sharma, a decent college boy preparing for his MBA exams and playing for the college’s football team, belonging to a middle-class family running a small grocery store & driving “first cab” taxis for extra income. On the night when he is on the way to attend a party on the occasion of winning a football match, he is induced by his sister to complete a few rides before the party, where he meets a rich, beautiful and sloshed girl on his last trip of the night. The girl is Sanaya Rath, being played by Madhurima Roy, who feels like trouble and smells of arrogance to Aditya on the very first glance. 
The girl, half awake and a half in the aura of booze, gets into argument with Aditya but later apologizes and the two find that they belong to the same college, she being a dropout student. After dropping her at her location, Aditya again goes back to her house in the context of returning her mobile which she accidentally leaves in the car. He is invited into the house, they both get high on booze and pills, get close, and this is where the night ends for Adi, only to wake up in the middle of the night to find Sanaya brutally stabbed to death.
Adi is convicted with the charge of rape and murder, and hence his story of guilty or not guilty begins, but the truth becomes hard to follow when all the evidence points against Adi and he cannot remember anything that took place in that house after he fell asleep. Pankaj Tripathi playing Madhav Mishra, a scamster advocate, makes his entry, trying to defend Adi’s case and proving him not guilty but with conscience of making his own monetary benefits.
Anupriya Goenka playing Nikhat Hussain ends up defending the case of Adi and with the assistance of Madhav Mishra tries to find the missing traces of the night of the murder. Meanwhile, Adi is sent to live in prison until proven not guilty where he finds different kind of politics functioning. Still trying to adjust to the life in prison he makes an arch enemy named Layak played by Dibyendu Bhattacharya who is after the life of Adi and also befriends another influential prisoner named Mustafa being played by Jackie Shroff.
The show is divided into two phases; one highlighting the life outside prison, showing how the family is dealing with their uprooted lives, public outrage on the heinous crime and the lawyers trying to carve out the truth in court, the other being Adi’s survival in prison. Vikrant Massey fits right in the parts depicting a helpless cab driver who is at the wrong place at the wrong time, but shortfalls in the scenes of prison depicting himself as a badass goon prisoner. 
Pankaj Tripathi is all set up to charm you and take the scene in his control with his wittiness, tremendous dialogue delivery, and unapologetic desi style. And the last but not the least, Jackie Shroff brings to the screen his bhiduness and the street style, owning up every inch of the screen, not leaving even a hint of flaw to pull the thread on.
This is not a show that will make you freeze yourself to the couch or pop up second thoughts about taking that much-needed bathroom break. It will hook you definitely through the entire first episode, but it is not a show that can be binge-watched. One hour long 10 episodes carry a slow-moving pace, dragging the story for little too long with a weak and not needed unnecessary side plot. The last few episodes are going to lead the stairway to a tensed up situation but eventually is not gonna end with an applause deserving twist. Hotstar with its new project has done a decent job but leaves you with too many loopholes and areas that need improvement.