Beast of Bangalore: Indian Predator is the true crime documentary about an alleged sexual predator and murderer in India during the late 1990s named Umesh Reddy. The documentary covers multiple crimes of his and several escapes he made while imprisoned.
Reddy is cunning and more clever than those assigned to watch over him. There’s nothing especially unique or different about his story. Is this a true crime documentary worth watching?
Why Beast of Bangalore may not be worth watching
We don’t actually learn the full extent of Reddy’s crimes. Many of his victims were too scared to come forward at all. Others simply didn’t want to be involved in the documentary. He’s certainly beastly with the information we do get. However, it does seem like the sheer numbers of terrors he committed are somewhat ignored in this film.
Part of the blame does seem to fall on investigators and the society in which he committed these vulgar acts. As the documentary progresses, we hear more from women who explain the shame the Indian society has for victims of sexual assault. It’s part of the reason why he was able to get away with so much. Rather than tell authorities of the assaults, many victims report the crime as theft. He is a burglar, but he’s also much worse.
Beast of Bangalore does portray Reddy as a manipulative predator with fetishes driving him to commit the crimes. It does fall short as a film series.
The major twist in this series was that Reddy is actually a police officer in training. The lead-up and reveal of this wasn’t done as effectively as it should have happened. The documentary was scattered, beginning with a crime later brought up at the end of the film. The timeline wasn’t steady enough and many of the crimes covered seemed to blend together too much.
Beast of Bangalore doesn’t deliver the kinds of punches I look to see in a true crime documentary. I didn’t feel much after watching it. There was little doubt he committed the crimes. Was this simply a disconnect because of the dubbed audio?
A good true crime documentary will have some sort of agenda or mission. Beast of Bangalore missed at dedicating this film to all of the women who were too afraid to speak up. This should have been a main point of the film. Instead, it’s brushed over lightly as is the trial.
The documentary felt too much like they were trying to cram a lot of information into three parts and yet they were regularly repeating information about the case. The presentation didn’t make for a good enough film.
Overall Score: 4 out of 10
Beast of Bangalore is a simple true crime series lacking anything truly remarkable to say about it.
Practically Trouble 
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