New Delhi, July 3, 2026: For over two decades, mention Arshad Warsi in the context of a cinematic partnership, and the human brain instantly conjures images of Circuit following his beloved Munna Bhai through the chaotic medical wards and lanes of Mumbai. That iconic, fiercely loyal bond defined a generation of Indian comedy. However, the streaming landscape of 2026 brings an entirely new dynamic. In the JioHotstar original series Pritam & Pedro, Warsi trades in his crisp kurtas for a police uniform, heading down to the sun-drenched, deceptively calm coastlines of Goa to find a brand-new partner-in-crime. This time, it isn’t a towering underworld don leading the charge, but a quiet, twenty-something tech prodigy who prefers a laptop keyboard to physical muscle.
Marking the highly anticipated long-form OTT debut of legendary filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani—who serves as the show’s creator, co-writer, and producer—Pritam & Pedro attempts a tricky balancing act. Directed by the visually gifted Avinash Arun (known for Paatal Lok and Three of Us), the six-episode series tries to weave Hirani’s signature emotional warmth and lighthearted social commentary into a modern cybercrime thriller. While the end product has triggered polarizing reactions among critics, it successfully introduces a classic “old-school vs. new-age” dynamic, powered by Arshad Warsi’s reliable, scene-stealing comic timing.
The Plot: Chalk, Cheese, and Cybercrime
The narrative kicks off away from the flashy, late-night party strips of Goa, focusing instead on its quieter, meandering lanes and colourful houses. We are introduced to Inspector Pedro Gonsalves (Arshad Warsi), a seasoned, street-smart Crime Branch cop who relies entirely on old-school instincts, muscle memory, and ground-level interrogations. Pedro is a self-proclaimed Luddite; he doesn’t know why a keyboard starts with the letter ‘Q’ instead of ‘A’, and he honestly doesn’t care. Following a professional mishap, Pedro is handed a punishment posting to the Cyber Crime Cell—a digital purgatory for a man who would much rather wave a pistol than click a mouse.
Enter Pritam Parkar (played by newcomer Vir Hirani), an engineering dropout scraping by as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Pritam walks into Pedro’s police station with his grandfather to report a stolen old radio tape recorder, which contains the only surviving voice recordings of his late grandmother. The tech-oblivious police staff pay little attention to the petty theft because they are losing their minds over a high-profile midnight ATM robbery.
Seizing the moment, Pritam strikes a deal: if they give him a laptop and fifteen minutes, he will find the thieves, provided they let him out to care for his grandfather. To the absolute shock of the veteran officers, the kid tracks down the culprits in under ten minutes using digital breadcrumbs. Recognizing a golden ticket out of his punishment posting, Pedro forms a desperate, underground alliance with Pritam.
What starts as a transaction to find a stolen tape recorder quickly snowballs into a high-stakes investigation. The duo is suddenly thrown into a complex web of political conspiracies, digital tampering, and the mysterious kidnapping of a sports minister’s son (played by Satyadeep Misra).
Arshad Warsi Holds the Fort
If there is one reason Pritam & Pedro remains thoroughly watchable despite its narrative stumbles, it is Arshad Warsi. Warsi approaches Pedro not as a hyper-intelligent super-cop, but as a deeply flawed, grieving, and technologically exhausted everyday man. He is grappling with domestic strain and the heavy emotional weight of losing his own son alongside his wife, Stacey (played elegantly by Mona Singh in a brief role).
Warsi’s portrayal of a middle-aged man utterly bewildered by the digital world provides the show with its biggest laughs. Watching Pedro mistake a computer server for a restaurant server or ask where the physical “envelope” is when someone mentions an email is genuinely funny. Warsi brings an organic levity and a sense of pity to Pedro that makes him immediately endearing. He manages to ground the show’s occasionally cartoonish elements with genuine dramatic weight, especially when dealing with his character’s buried familial grief.
A Generational Hand-Off and Mixed Reviews
The series serves a very significant personal purpose for its creator: it is the official launchpad for Rajkumar Hirani’s son, Vir Hirani, who steps into the titular role of Pritam. The casting mirrors an iconic full-circle moment for long-time fans; over two decades ago, a young Vir famously posed alongside Warsi in the end-credits scene of Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. as “Short Circuit.”
In his debut performance, Vir Hirani plays Pritam with a quiet, introverted innocence that contrasts sharply with Warsi’s expressive boisterousness. Some sections of the audience have found this “opposites attract” dynamic refreshing, praising the young actor’s restraint. However, major critics have been less forgiving, noting that Vir often appears stiff and out of his depth when sharing the frame with a veteran powerhouse like Warsi. Where the role required an actor who could fire back quick-witted digital banter to match Pedro’s exasperation, Pritam’s performance occasionally flattens the show’s comedic energy.
Furthermore, the series has received a divided critical reception regarding its handling of cybercrime. Written by Rajkumar Hirani, Abhijat Joshi, and Suyash Trivedi, the script deliberately simplifies complex digital hacking so that everyday audiences can follow along. While some viewers appreciate this accessible, jargon-free storytelling, purists argue that it trivializes modern cyber threat realities, reducing genius-level hacking to basic Google searches and Truecaller tracking.
The Antagonist and Technical Merits
As the investigation deepens, the cat-and-mouse game leads the mismatched duo directly to a formidable cybercriminal named Martin, played by a delightfully sinister Vikrant Massey. Moving away from his usual empathetic roles, Massey embraces a shadier, vindictive character motivated by past trauma and severe systemic pain. The writers ensure Martin isn’t a black-and-white villain; his descent into cyber malice is born out of a tragedy that makes the audience feel a strange sense of empathy for his vendetta. Boman Irani also makes a brief but impactful appearance, anchoring the central crisis of the kidnapping plot.
From a technical standpoint, director Avinash Arun utilizes the Goan landscape beautifully, steering completely clear of the cliché neon-lit party aesthetic. Instead, the camera captures a sun-kissed, moody, and atmospheric Goa, where the natural beauty of the Western Ghats clashes with the dark, invisible crimes happening behind computer screens. The background score, featuring a prominent, melancholic violin theme, adds an unmistakable layer of old-school Hirani warmth to an otherwise digital narrative.