Meena Investigatrice Privata

When you have too much money to rope in Vinay Pathak, Harsh Chhaya, Parambrata and Jishu but you forget to write a story, a disaster like PI Meena happens. From the beginning, everything about this web series is very random: like why protagonist Meenakshi Iyer is so irritating, what is Parambrata aka fraud lawyer's story and how it is related to the main plot of virus, why there is so much detailing of the newspaper house bearing nauseating resemblance to Anandabazar Patrika's office and its former editor Aveek Sarkar etc.

PI Meena is a series of phone calls people are making to each other in a world with no bluetooth. Before receiving a call, the person politely makes an announcement that they have to take the call -- thus contributing to a lot of wastage of time which the series as a whole is.

Camera work is zero like the plot. Scenes are disjointed and many are difficult to watch as there is no concept of light either.

Parambrata and Jishu are stalwarts of the Bengali film industry but PI Meena makes both of them a laughing stock -- something they don't deserve at this point of their careers. Or maybe they do for agreeing to essay such ludicrous characters.

There is no spoiler alert as nothing can spoil PI Meena more than the production itself.

Despite having good plot and script it seems they are eagerly wanted to complete the series with worst climax and end. All the episode are good and plot is twisted nicely but mood will be spoil At the end because how the story ends. It doesn't suit to script at all.

Despite having good plot and script it seems they are eagerly wanted to complete the series with worst climax and end. All the episode are good and plot is twisted nicely but mood will be spoil At the end because how the story ends. It doesn't suit to script at all.

Many things haven't explained in the end which are supposed to be explain.

As someone who follows content on Amazon Prime, I was quite impressed by the trailer of PI Meena and really looking forward to what the show would entail. Watched it on the day of release and the first episode definitely tested my patience (the intelligent casting helped here though). The story picks pace as you sit through it watching Ep2 and 3 , and totally gets you wanting to know more as you move beyond Ep4 n 5. The writing is crisp and justifies the actions of a young detective who is dealing with a devastating personal past yet trying to make it through her challenging profession. The Bengali actors justify their parts and the Deadly Virus theme conceptualized way before the Pandemic deserves all the KUDOS !

The story does leave you with some 'Why's' in the end but overall I found the series worthy of my time .

The main lead actress, Taniya Maniktala doesn't have the presence and panache to really carry a whole series on her back, I had the same issue with her in the series Tooth Pari and on top of that the drudge of a screenplay doesn't do any favours. It's slow and doesn't connect well, almost feels like it has been written by someone straight out of school and lacks the know how of the emotions of real life. In a protagonists centred screenplay none of the side- characters were let to shine either.

Most of the actors' actions and acting choices felt deliberate, so, the direction was off as well (Let's not talk about so, so many technical mistakes which shouldn't happen at this level, but are always superseded when the story-telling is honest, but sadly that didn't happen either) and the edit went no where with the pacing. A flurry of images followed by a dragging close up shot... there is no beat or rhythm to it and also infested with some basic and honestly sad, technical mistakes.

It's sad to see a platform, Anazon's Prime Video, which gave us Panchayat, Aranyak, Mirzapur, Patal-lok and many more well made Indian series, falling from it's grace, settling and spending money on weak projects and creators such as these.

Based in the city of joy Kolkata, PI Meena is helmed by Arindam Mitra and Debaloy Bhattacharya together, as a tale of a professional investigator who witnesses an accident of an unknown person in broad daylight and the consequences she faces thereafter, forms the rest of the story.

The story builds episode by episode with the help of a dark environment which sets the mood of the narration.

The series maintains a continuous pace throughout.

Some good conceptualization has been made out of Covid 19 and it has been camouflaged with a socio political angle intelligently.

Like other web series in recent times, this one too has some characters with their individual sub plots. But a major weakness of the script is that these sub plots either lack proper conclusion or few things remain unexplained even at the end.

Camera work of the series is adequate and dialogues are well written. Editing is a portion where some more or better work was required.

Debaloy Bhattacharya has directed well apart from some minor flourishes. A better version is expected out of him for the next season.

Coming down to performances- Tanya Maniktala carries the show on her shoulders ably, despite the flaws in the script. She is absolutely natural as the investigator. Her character being the central one, more dimensions to it would have made her role more impactful.

Parambrata as usual has played his part well enough as the lawyer. His track too needed some meat for having a stronger impact on the story.

Jishu Sengupta is fantastic as the doctor out of every scope he has received to perform. He shines in every scene, be it conversation with anyone else or the action sequence.

Among the rest- Vinay Pathak, Vipin Sharma, Harsh Chhaya, Samir Soni, Saurav Das, Zarina Wahab and others have played their part well. Each one of their stories needed a proper explanation which is unfortunately missing.

All in all it can be a weekend watch with not very high expectations.

As mentioned before. A better Season 2 can be expected from the talented Team of Arindam, Debaloy, Parambrata and Tanya besides others.....