Delhi Crime Season 3 Review: Shocking, Powerful And Uplifting

Delhi Crime Season 3 Review

A grim tone sets in pretty early in Tanuj Chopra’s six-part heated season, which examines the plight of the weaker gender in our country. And it ends with some harrowing statistics on the countless young girls victimized through sex trafficking and bride market trading that spills across the borders. Between the start and the end, Delhi Crime 3 is an unrelenting cat-and-mouse game between Vartika and the ruthless trafficker, Badi Didi aka Meena Chaudhary (Huma Qureshi), interspersed with scenes that scream verve, vigour and viscerality.

What ticks off as a desperate search for Noor’s missing mother ramifies into a pursuit to bust Badi Didi’s nefarious nexus that constitutes a local supplier Kalyani (a terrific Mita Vasisth), an in-house trainer, Kusum (Sayani Gupta) and a Bangkok-based client, John ji (Kelly Dorji). Poor and hapless girls crushed in the maelstrom of misery are trapped into trafficking with the lure of job opportunities and a good future.

This may allude you to Gopi Muthraan’s 2014 thriller ‘Mardaani’ starring Rani Mukherjee as a determined cop, but Tanuj’s positioning of Delhi Crime as a part-real, part fictionalized drama ultimately sizzles with the intense treatment – tight interrogation scenes accentuated by facial close-ups (adds up as a bonafide testimony to Johan Aidt and Eric Wunder Lin’s stupendous camerawork), deep pauses during the exchange of dialogues and an unsettling background score (Ceiri Torjussen) running through the screenplay elevate it into a visceral experience.

The gaze at the undue male entitlements and patriarchy in the societal system, both rural and urban, widens with the passing of each episode. While Shubhra Swarup’s deeply-rooted narrative hops between the hinterlands of India covering places like Rohtak, Jhunjhunu and Surat in the course of its dense investigation, the show delves into the personal arcs of its pivotal characters who are weighed down by bureaucratic maneuvering and domestic upheavals. Bolstered by powerhouse performances, Delhi Crime 3 gets a solid uplift, relying on the female brigade – a constantly weary Vartika, superbly enacted by Shefali, is at the helm of affairs. Watch her out in those fiery interrogations where the actress lets her eyes only do the talking – its both discomforting and scarring.

Mita Vasisth offers a heady cocktail of dialect and daring while portraying Kusum. While her part is short-lived, the actress leaves a solid impact and testimonial to her acting prowess.

Huma Qureshi is probably at the best phase of her career. In comparison to her fiery avatar in last week’s Maharani, her Badi Didi reigns as a supremely formidable and unapologetic figure of sass and swears. On the contrary, Rasika is terrifically understated – a no nonsense cop who only lets her duty dictate her circumstances. Surrounded by the female bandwagon, actors like Rajesh Tailang and Anshuman Pushkar shine in their respective parts. 

Delhi Crime Season 3 review – Final words

In its journey of unearthing true crime dossiers, Delhi Crime has evolved as an intricately done franchise that mixes real and fiction, and the result is excitingly immersive. This season really pricks you at the most sensitive places.

Streaming on Netflix from 13th November 2025.