Drishyam, Nishikant Kamat’s remake of the Mohanlal hit by the same name and the more recent Kamal Haasan starrer, Papanasam, brings presents a world of commitment and love.
A 4th fail, local cable operator, Vijay Salgaoncar, leads a normal day to day life in a sleepy suburb of Goa, along with his wife and 2 daughters. An innocent inter-school nature trip, leads to his daughter being stalked by which starts a chain of unfortunate events, leading to the boy’s accidental death. Although the family tries its best to hide their crime, only to realise that he was the son of the local IG of Police, Meera Deshmukh. Here begins a game of wits between the local law enforcements and a family, bonded by blood.
Ajay Devgn wasn’t supposed to have a release this year due to his directorial venture, Shivaay. Certain glitches there, lead to this film getting an early shot and made in around 6 months, from the day of its first shoot in Feb, 2015. Thank God for that.
The film shows Ajay’s prowess as the actor that he is and not the insulting AJ or the clichéd Singham Returns last year. His portrayal of the innocent, doting father is sure to get people flocking for this one. Shriya Saran, Ishita Dutta and the Mrinal Jadhavl are all very good in their parts individually.
Likewise the cop brigade of Gaitonde, Prabhu and Sawant, led by Tabu and her businessman hubby Rajat Kapoor.
Shot in a Goa, not shown in Rohit Shetty movies, the film’s picturesque background does add to the flavour of the film.
Where I find the film lacking is in the conviction of director Nishikant Kamat. Somehow his film doesn’t connect with you on an emotional level. So whereas the recent Bhaijaan film had you tearing up the tissue boxes at the slightest of pain of the daughter and her Bajrangi, somewhere this film doesn’t connect on that emotional level, and this makes you feel wanting for some emotional catharsis.
The songs by Vishal & Gulzar are hummable but do not add much to the story. On the contrary the background score by Sandip Phatepherkar is better, but far too little. In suspense thrillers, the music plays the role of an additional character but somehow Kamat doesn’t exploit that angle.
What acts as a spoiler is the narrative, which takes it own sweet time to layout the scenario in front of the audience. So whilst you do know what is going to happen due to the overzealous promos, you want to get to the action right away rather than drudge along at snail’s pace. Such thrillers usually should be within 120-140 minutes max, whilst Kamat overstays till 163 minutes of running time. Thats where the punch fails and then the overall dramatic climax somehow loses its impact.
It’s not a bad film, but the impact of the plot, which is in another controversy due to a claim from another production house to be a copy of the Japanese novel, The Devotion of Suspect X, is lost.
Rating: 2.5 /5
By: Yusuf Poonawala
