UNPALATABLE TRUTHS

performance director Mehta gets out of the cast especially Shefali Shah.

But it doesn't achieve that level of emotional impact that I expected from the product considering the fine talent that's gone into it.

There are two reasons why

Delhi Crime stops short of being a masterpiece on real-life crime. For one, it holds back way too much of the angst probably to appeal to a global audience. The attempt to subdue the sheer insanity of the crime is admirable but eventually a fatal error of judgment.

DELHI CRIME (Netflix)

STARRING: Shefali Shah, Rasika Dugal

DIRECTOR: Richie Mehta

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It isn't easy being on the right side of the law when all you get for your efforts is brickbats and insults from fence sitters. To say that this disturbing but finally redundant real-life crime drama whitewashes the khaki uniform, would be frivolous and irresponsible to the extreme. What it does do, is to humanise the police force by showing a cluster of fiercely committed police officers (women, in this story) driving themselves over the edge to nap the

The Least Of These

STARRING: Sharman Joshi, Stephen Baldwin

DIRECTOR: Aneesh Daniels

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From the outset of this profoundly moving though flawed recreation of the ghastly Graham Staines murder, director Aneesh Daniels and writer Andrew Matthews, make it very clear to us whose side they are on.

And that's perfectly fine by me. A work of art is most welcome to take sides if it knows the truth. And truth in this case was this: Odishabased Australian missionary Graham Staines did not indulge in conversion of the locals. He was cleared of all malafide intentions by an investigative committee after he and his two little sons were burnt to death by goons with suspicious political affiliation. Nobody is suggesting saffron in the blood. This has gone far beyond mere suggestion.

It is interesting how the director has chosen Sharman Joshi's character of the out-of-luck desperate journalist with a pregnant wife to support, to create an arc from cynicism about Staines' work of faith to a resounding perpetrators of the crime. Did the cops on the case really show this level of commitment? Does it matter? Heroism on a level where it heals society is unquestionable.

Recreating in vivid vicious colours the events before, during and after the life-changing ‘Nirbhaya’ gang rape in Delhi, this seven-part series spares us the brutality of watching the rape but protects from none of the trauma and horrific aftermath of a crime that shook the conscience of the nation.

As we hear our drama's hero Vartika Chaturvedi say, this crime was different, the savagery was unprecedented. She got it right.

I will never forget the sequence where the ravaged girl is rolled into the hospital bloodied, brutalised beyond all human explanation, in pain beyond all endurance, and yet tells her father, "I will be fine".

We do that all the time. We keep saying things will be fine when we know they will only get worse.

Director Richie Mehta negotiates with powerful hands the many hurdles that a crime investigation so complex must face. This is a very professionally handled crime drama, superior to some of the real-life crime dramas on television (some of which are not bad at all) mainly for the level of