Curry & Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case

'Curry and Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case' is a compelling watch, offering an intriguing deep-dive into one of India's most shocking true crime cases.

While the documentary is a powerful narrative of how it went down, it lacks the voice of Jolly Joseph herself. Because we've delved through the 'who' and 'how' parts of the story, the reasoning behind the 'why' aspect is hard to fathom due to the manner and plotting of the killings over time.

Though the show fails to dig deep into Jolly's psyche, it's accurate with the depiction of the pain endured by the remaining members of Ponnamattam family. The show's focus is mostly on explaining 'how' it happened, but there is a vague attempt to impart sense to the most important question, 'why'.

Curry & Cyanide leaves you none the wiser as far as the 'facts' go. The making is not great, the end result is rather unimpressive and all it does is serve as a refresher course if you are looking at jogging your memory about the crimes in this case. This one's a misfire.

Curry & Cyanide comes across as a sleazy slasher movie masquerading as an exhaustively researched account of horrific crimes. The film recounts the story with a breakneck pace that positively eliminates any possibility of cross-examination, and it's one of the film's biggest problems.