I am a woman.And I, like another reviewer here, found the plot to be very stereo-typical and patronizing to most of the men portrayed in it. The only man not stereotypical in my view is Dr. Rose who is portrayed as weak and undecided which is patronizing. The women, on the contrary, are portrayed as strong, opinionated or misunderstood victims.This was written by a man. A man who is purportedly an ex-barrister. So is he right?Well, apparently much of the legal details of this production are muddled. So much so, that it is a point of contention with some. Therefore, is one really suppose to just "suspend belief" because it's a drama? Moreover, should one derive a true premise from it and then make assumptions based on a dramatic interpretation?Also, five night episodic treatment left it tedious and slow. Better if it had run three nights.It certainly gets one talking, but if anything, the greatest part of Criminal Justice was the performances. Maxine Peake, Matthew Macfadyen and Sophie Okonedo were brilliant.And, brilliant acting can make you believe anything!

This is a good strong drama that sticks out a class above the rest; it is based on the justice system and shows a gritty world of 'winning'. What Lawyers are willing to do in order to free their client, distort evidence, trick witnesses and so on. It is beautifully shot, written and acted,the actors are perfect for the roles that they are given, everyone excels and no one is a weak link. The character Ben is very lovable he is innocent and naive; it is a sheer pain seeing him in prison and the predators that lurk. Characters like Hooch, Stone are played fantastically providing Ben advice and comfort in the youngsters time of need.While Freddie Graham is just plain scary...He doesn't even need to speak to send shivers down your back; the character at first seems to be the anti-hero but as the episodes go on it reveals his true motives, the only thing that I didn't like was the ending; It had no real closure with the character Ben.... But nonetheless a great show.

This mini-series hits the ground running, the first episode including the sea side scenes and part of the second are just fantastic, but then the drama engages in the ambitious task of analyzing whatever may or may not be wrong with the British penal and judicial system, I praise the intent, but to incorporate seamlessly and successfully this sort of concerns into a drama is not an easy task, we are promised some sort of rigorous examination, but instead of 'Oz' (brutal US prison drama), we get some sort of sub-Dickensian ambiguous horrors, where a lot is promised but very little delivered and there is always a little army of semi-benevolent Artful Dodgers and Fagins to save our hero's day, like Peter Postethwaite's Hooch 'the listener' and David Harewood's master criminal Freddie Graham, the latter does a really good job of injecting true menace in its role. We know we are entering Dickensian territory when Con O'Neill seedy lawyer complete with gotta, bandaged feet and perennial facial stubble appears on the scene, the irony is that he does a wonderful turn and steals every scene in which he appears, it is just that it feels like he had just been wandering out of a Great Expectation set to blunder into the wrong drama by mistake. In the last episode where all ideological concerns need to be shed to wind down the narrative the drama seem able to recreate some of the original dramatic tension of the first part. ON THE WHOLE Highly RECOMMENDED!

I thoroughly enjoyed the series "Criminal Justice" and was at the edge of my seat throughout. The acting on the part of Ben Wishaw was excellent as he managed to pay attention to detail in terms of his nervous ticks and facial expressions and one really could empathise with his character who was extremely endearing Ben Wishaw's performance was astounding and deeply moving. I wish I could tell him myself. Equally the portrayal of the British justice system was extremely interesting and insightful, this is really TV at its best as it deals with so many different character types each with their own unique characteristics hence the shabby looking solicitor who was first and last in representing him. the cinematography was poignant and succinct as it moved at a good pace keeping its audience encapsulated throughout.Kind Regards Kuldeep Kaur.