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Criminal (UK)

 


The first round of this anthology series spanned four countries and had stories set in England, Germany, France and Spain. Each country gets its own series with 3- 4 episodes each. It is a very unusual format and utilises a closed room technique in a linear format. The viewer gets to see only the room with the accused in it and the room where the investigating team is stationed. A glimpse of the corridor connecting these two rooms is also there, other than that it all happens here.

The accused is interrogated sometimes by a single detective and at other times they tag-team each other. It is all done to elicit a confession. The story progresses only with conversations and body language and it is superb! I enjoyed the first round very very much and was all set for the second one. The standout for me in Season One was David Tennant – the accused. It was perfect for him, as it was far away from his portrayal of Detective Alec Hardy in the seminal series Broadchurch, it was a fine way to break the mould.

A few days back I had added the second season to my watchlist and was going to watch it one of these days, and then its trailer popped up at the end of a movie and I saw a glimpse of….. Hold your breath GoT lovers, none other than Kit Harington! At that moment I couldn’t have watched it and so I googled the second series and Yes! Yes! Yes! it was there in black and white! He was the accused in one of the episodes. And do you know who else? Kunal Nayyar! My mind was blown and I had to watch this ASAP. Well I finally did last night and to be fair to the other episodes, I watched the ones with the other accused first and then the one with Kunal and finally the one with Kit.

Let me tell you all this planning and yearning was totally worth it!

The whole series is very good but the Kit and the Kunal episodes were just fabulous!

Kunal Nayyar is just chilling and since I have never seen him be anything other than Rajesh Ramayan Koothrapali, the effect was magnified. He was so creepy and so disturbed that it took me awhile to get over his performance and progress to Kit’s story. He is completely shorn of all embellishments and uses his considerable acting prowess to tell his story. When he baldly makes a very dangerous statement, I actually jerked upright, I was that shocked. Unmissable!

Kit Harington has his first major role since the grumpy, growly and broody Jon Snow and he is just as adorable, what is an add-on is the dangerous aura that he now has. He has two fabulous monologues to deliver and oh boy they will have you riveted! The social aspect of his story is a topic very dear to me and that maybe added to the allure of it. This was the perfect series for Kit to show how smoothly he can switch tracks. I watched his monologues again just to let it all soak in.

Please do yourselves a favour and watch this one.

Love and Peace.

#MiniasReviews
#AllLivesMatter

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