Review of Drishyam

"Drishyam" is one of the rarest Bollywood film which is a film about family bonding yet it is a crime thriller too. It is the remake of 2013 hit Malayali film by the same name. It is the kind of thriller where you don't have to play the guessing game to uncover the mystery till the end rather you know everything from beginning still you will enjoy watching the mind game between the Police and the culprit.

The story begins introducing Vijay (Ajay Devgan), a fourth standard fail who runs a local

cable business in a village in Goa. He lives with his family; his wife Nandini (Shriya Saran)and two daughters. Apart from his family his only love is movies. Their happy family was doing all good until something unwanted happened to them when they got involved in the case of a missing guy , who is also the only son of the Inspector General Meera Deshmukh (Tabu). Now its all the responsibility of Vijay to save his family from this disaster and how he does that is the rest of the film.

The screenplay is a scene by scene adaptation of the original Malayali film so this is

also unnecessarily lengthier , specially the first half has very unimportant portions, trying to portray the happy life of the family taking more than the required time. But the story picks up from the second half and from this point the screenplay is gripping. The mind game between Vijay and Meera is very much interesting. Although it seems a bit too much to believe at some points but still as it has been said in one of the  dialogue of the movie in cinema we believe, what we see, no matter how much unconvincing it is.

As a director Nishikant Kamat has done a good job in choosing good actors and good locations otherwise about the story telling he has to do nothing much as it is a very loyal remake so there is not any modification in the style of storytelling.

Ajay Devgan is remarkably good in the role of the head of the family with a mission to save his loved ones. After a long time we have seen him doing a character with more emotional content unlike his recent mindless remakes. He has wonderfully portrayed his character.

After "Haider" last year Tabu has played yet another mother to a young kid and she is

brilliant. She enters in the story after long one hour but from the point she appears she lefts her impression. Her character has multiple shades varying from a tough Cop to a sympathetic mother and she has balanced these emotional variation very well. Watch out her in the climax where she has no dialogue but still her silence says much.

Shriya Saran is just good as Ajay's wife. Rajat Kapoor as Tabu's husband is superb.  Ishita Dutaa as Vijay's elder daughter and Mrunal Jadhav as the younger daughter is very good. Kamlesh Sawant has made his presence felt among the big actors in the character of Inspector Gaitonde.

Among the technical team , cinematography is appropriate by Avinash Arun. The production designs by Sukant Panigrahy is very authentic. The editing by Aarif Sheikh is wonderful in the second half but it could have been better in the first half. There is no scope for any song so even the much loved combination of Vishal Bharadwaj and Gulzar is not effective here.

Overall "Drishyam" is a good movie made with a good intention, there are some loopholes but that can be overlooked for an engaging second half and some wonderful acting.
Give it a chance and you wont be disappointed.