Rating – 2 stars on 5
‘PI Meena’ directed by Debaloy Bhattacharya, tells us the story of Meenakshi Iyer (Tanya Maniktala) a young private detective in Kolkata. Meena, as she is called by most on the show, is struggling to cope with her career as a private investigator (PI) and her unhappy family life. Her boss Pritam (Harsh Chhaya) is constantly on her case while her client, lawyer Subho (Parambrata Chattopadhyay), seems to be ga-ga over her.
Meena witnesses a road accident one morning and takes the victim, Partho, to the hospital. This is when life takes a twist as Partho’s mother (Zarina Wahab) believes that her son was killed. Partho’s mother implores Meena to find out who the killer is and then does so herself. Now, Meena is all fired up and wants to uncover the truth. She heads off to Bagdogra to meet Dr Andrew (Parambrata Chattopadhyay) who can help her. What will she discover? Will she solve this big mystery?
‘PI Meena’ revolves around a conspiracy theory and a deadly virus leaked from a lab along with big pharma greed. This virus theme and a conspiracy theory seems to have become the favourite of filmmakers after the COVID-19 pandemic. While one can forgive them that, the fact is that every series based on this theme must have something new to engage the audience. Unfortunately, ‘PI Meena’ has too many characters (most are stereotypical) appearing related to diverse issues that none of them hold your attention and the main plot is diluted. The pacing is slow and with the story meandering, it is a tedious watch.
The show has numerous loopholes and logic goes for a toss. One is not sure why the protagonist’s name is Meenakshi Iyer – but her brother’s name is Joy – and why the story setting is Kolkata. One hasn’t seen such a posh private investigation agency either where salaries are not paid but the PI is flown to Bangkok at the drop of a hat. And one can go on with this list but it’s meaningless.
Sourabh Prabhudesai’s editing is not great – this eight-episode series (40 minutes each) could have been effectively trimmed down to six cutting out a lot of unnecessary distractions in the show. It’s good to envision a woman as the protagonist – and in this case a PI – but Meenakshi is not Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple nor Jessica Fletcher. She seems to have some characteristic traits of them but unlike them, Meenakshi Iyer is hardly expressive and remains morose throughout the series. Perhaps, director Debaloy Bhattacharya can decode that mystery for us.