Rahul Desai
Maamla Legal Hai is the sort of modest misfire that makes you search for euphemistic terms like “well-intentioned” and “quirky” because it doesn’t really work but you also don’t feel like dismissing it.
Ravi Kishan is characteristically relaxed and reliable as VD Tyagi, a senior advocate who dreams of becoming the president of the Delhi bar association and ultimately, the attorney general of India. Tyagi’s hustling is the primary narrative in this case-per-episode format.
Is the show missing the screen-writing flue ncy to make him a memorable Munna Bhai-styled protagonist? Definitely. But asking for more in 2024 is a crime that not even the lawyers of this series can bail you out of.
I get that it’s supposed to look silly, with humour shaping a system where justice and emotion usually go hand in hand. On paper, it makes sense. But satires aren’t the same as comedies – the former trusts the inherent fictions of life, the latter exaggerates the fictions of life.
Garish comedy with condescending sound cues and score, hammy dialogue and facial expressions – that tries to oversell the eccentricity of an environment that’s naturally eccentric. A deadpan gaze might have worked better than slapstick gags and tickle-the-audience reminders
Maamla Legal Hai works at a fundamental staging level. I like that the inner workings of a small-time court form the core: Advocates playing the “game” while the judiciary is the umpire; the acrimony between higher and lower-court judges