Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut Court, which opened on April 17, looks at the slow-paced Indian judicial system through the trial of a radical poet accused of abetting a sewage cleaner’s suicide. Court is unlike most legal dramas made in India, which rely on bombast, sudden twists and a speedy conclusion that will be alien to anybody who has had the misfortune entering a court room.

Most movies featuring legal proceedings are more exciting than real life, and for good reason. Well-produced courtroom dramas explore themes of justice and redemption in more interesting ways than the vigilante picture, introduce audiences to basic legal concepts and allow writer, directors and actors to focus on character development.

Yeh Rastey Hai Pyar Ke



For those who like their courtroom dramas to be as pulsating as boxing matches, here is a scene from RK Nayyar’s Yeh Rastey Hai Pyar Ke (1963). The movie is based on the real-life Mumbai murder case involving former naval officer KJ Nanavati, who shot dead his English wife’s lover Prem Ahuja and surrendered to the police. Nanavati’s trial, reported breathlessly by the local press, resulted in the jury system being scrapped in India. Swayed by Nanavati’s apparently honest and honourable demeanour, a lower court jury declared him innocent. He was eventually sentenced and pardoned after serving three years in prison. Sunil Dutt plays Nanavati, Leela Naidu his wife Sylvia, and Rehman the slain lover. The movie’s real heroes are its rival lawyers, played with suitable swagger by thespians Motilal and Ashok Kumar.

Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho



This clip isn’t of the greatest quality, but it gives some indication of a more realistic and sobering depiction of the ability of the Indian judicial system to suck its litigants dry. Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s 1984 satire Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho! remains tragically relevant. An aged couple in Mumbai fight their landlord for having neglected their abode for years in court, making one appearance after another in the hope that the law will finally come over to their side.

12 Angry Men



The American jury system forms the basis of Sidney Lumet’s acclaimed 1957 adaptation of a telefilm. Eleven members out of a 12-person jury have decided to hang a Hispanic teenager on the charge of having killed his father. Juror number 8, played with typical sensitivity and intelligence by Henry Fonda, is the lone dissenter. The manner in which he converts the jury to his point of view is seductive enough to have inspired an Indian remake by Basu Chatterjee in 1986, called Ek Ruka Hua Faisla.

My Cousin Vinny



The Italian-American comic talent Joe Pesci excels at playing fish out of water, and nowhere does he thrash about in more pleasurable agony than in Jonathon Lynn’s 1992 comedy. Pesci’s Vincent Gambini is a mechanic turned lawyer who must rescue his cousin and a friend who are falsely accused of killing a store clerk. The biggest obstacle to justice: the accused are New Yorkers, while the crime has taken place in rural Alabama. It is Alabama, with its curious ways and its fondness for grits, as well as Gambini’s feisty fiancée, played with sass by Marisa Tomei, that ensure justice.

The Trial of Viviane Amsalem



This movie by Israeli siblings Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz was screened at the Mumbai Film Festival in 2014 in the same week as Tamhane’s Court. Fabulously written, directed and acted, Gett lays bare the misogyny written into Israeli divorce law, according to which a wife cannot be divorced unless her husband gives his sanction. Viviane (played by Ronit Elkabetz)  has been trying to divorce her husband Elisha (Simon Akbarian) for three years, but he simply will not sign the document that will liberate his wife from a long-dead marriage. Set entirely inside the courtroom except for a few scenes, Gett is an intensely gripping and piercing look at institutionalised prejudice.