POPCORN REVIEWSS

Written by Rajkumar Hirani, Abhijat Joshi, and Suyash Trivedi, the proceedings of Pritam And Pedro showcases early signs of hiranisms when you are introduced to the lead protagonists – Pritam (Vir Hirani) and Pedro (Arshad Warsi). The former is jailed for pestering the cops to search for a tape-recorder that beholds the cassette of his grandmother. The latter comes across as an incompetent but good-hearted cop who hands his laptop over for Pritam to suddenly provide leads of an ATM robbery. And when Pritam obliges and Pedro cracks the case, they form an-analog-and-digital team of buddy cops who would go onto join forces in cracking many cases of the cybercrime department, after the latter is transferred to the same.

The minor issue to begin with is with regards to the simplicity employed in showcasing the behind-the-circuit (no pun intended with the last word) passages involving the technology. For instance, Pritam isn’t shown to randomly keep typing on a laptop to hack a system – which is good. But the convenience around him hacking into public phone towers or ultra-protected softwares is very much in play. And more so, in the most basic manner possible.

It also doesn’t help that the characterization majorly suffers due to the binary nature of the writing. In an instance, an irritated Pedro tells the complainant to do pest control when he brings forth the complaint of a ‘bug’ in the system. Elsewhere, he is angered at the idea of information being stored literally in the ‘clouds’. The humour is surface-level but so is the characterization of a cop that shows incredible signs of incompetancy, while having to rely on a tech-wizard to crack the cases. But the idea to keep him heartfelt felt more like a crowd-pleasing tactic to save up on his inability to be tech-savvy. For instance, you see him convincing a suicidal cop on the verge of killing his wife and lover to do what is right, almost magically transforming him to take a back-step. This, while we are only getting started with the weirdly placed structure of the narrative.

The suicidal cop incident is enough to tell you on how the writers are willing to negate the moderately high stakes employed in the narrative, by bartering a thrilling conclusion for a warm and fuzzy ending. And they remain guilty of the same, even while introducing the viewers to the core conflict – of the kidnapping of the sports minister’s son. And even then, the characterization suffers and how! For instance, the backstory of Pritam had no business to end on the revenge angle that would tie up his past and present featuring a top hacker Martin (Vikrant Massey) who is such a sketchy character to begin with (his hacking mechanism involves sending an OTP to the victim’s phone, only to use the same phone to perform the deed).

Or even the backstory involving the death of the son of Pedro and his wife Stacey (Mona Singh) that hardly focuses on the grief that the parents have to endure, while being more interested in tying it up to the central conflict. Or even the character of the minister’s wife being blackmailed by her ex with morphed photographs – an object that also finds relevance in a different context in Pritam’s flashback sequence.

It is interesting on how the writing raises the stakes in the narrative with the character of Martin who apparently wouldn’t stop at anything – also imminently cutting the fingers of the child that he kidnapped. Or also wanting Pritam to repent for his sins, against a timer that would run down the clock of penance in exchange for returning the little child. Or a potential mole in the police force (a track that had an early cop out). But it is baffling on the cop out at the end – wherein the writers almost shift the antagonist tag from Martin to ‘technology’, in an ending that felt bleak and unwarranted. The little lecture on the ill-effects of technology through a couple of star cameos had me facepalm to the extent that I couldn’t believe what I was watching.

You cannot employ Hiranisms out of nowhere when the stakes are high. And more importantly, you cannot write long form content in a manner that is so sketchy, and reeks of staleness. Perhaps the Raju Hirani brand of humour has an expiry date afterall? Only his next theatrical release will paint a better picture – and I sincerely hope this isn’t the case, in a medium that he is most comfortable in. The screenplay here could have been a fun buddy cop comedy, but instead what you get is a weird drama that was bingeable, and well…bingeable. Technology never felt this stale!