Drishyam review: You'll be better off watching the original Malayalam film

Drishyam
Dir: Nishikant Kamat
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Shriya Saran, Kamlesh Sawant, Ishita Dutta.

Ratings:

It isn't surprising that Bollywood leapt on the opportunity to remake Jeetu Joseph's 20 13 Malayalam hit of the same name starring superstar Mohanlal. It has a fascinating plot, for most part an engaging narrative and a charismatic protagonist. There is an ordinary family which finds itself in dire straits and comes together to deal with the common enemy, in this case the police. The crime is committed and the criminals revealed in the first 30 minutes; the suspense here lies in the remaining two hours which are spent in showing how to get away with the crime and in wondering if the family will crumble under relentless pressure. The cleverness of the original lies in how it blurs the line of how a good guy is inadvertently committing unlawful activities ultimately for a good cause. Simply put, the Malayalam film gives the Sooraj Barjatya's message of family matters/Hum Saath Saath Hain a novel new spin. Sadly, the new Drishyam fails to paint a compelling portrait of a close-knit family which is crucial to the film. It also drags the subsequent survival of the smartest.

Ajay Devgn is Vijay Salgaonkar, an orphan, a fourth-standard dropout, a cable operator, a cinephile, a husband, a father of two and foremost a family man. He suddenly finds himself having to protect his family after the son of a police officer goes missing. Cops are after his family. Vijay concocts lies at a rapid pace, demonstrating a clever mind which constructs a foolproof narrative to ensure his family isn't implicated. Soon Vijay's wife (Shriya Saran) and daughters are anxious participants in a plan to deceive the cops. It's a promising story which is executed in a listless manner with only little thrill of the original.

What Drishyam 2013 does particularly well is turn the concept of seeing is believing over its head. Filmmaker Jeetu Joseph poses the question that what if what you are shown or told is such a well-constructed lie, fed so astutely and frequently, that you are convinced it is the truth? In doing so the film focuses on the resourcefulness of the human mind and simultaneously a patriarch's resilience to save his family from a life behind bars. Kamath's film barely establishes these aspects and instead turns the film into The Dummy's Guide to Fool the Police. Ample time is devoted to establish Vijay's genius and explain his plan in such detail that it leaves little to audience imagination. As a result, the battle of brains between Vijay and his nemesis in inspector general Meera Deshmukh (Tabu) never quite feels a battle. The investigation itself is a drab affair.

Vijay is a complex character. He is exploiting the goodwill he enjoys to get out of a soup. He is a master pretender, liar. Devgn struggles to demonstrate the many layers of Vijay. He especially isn't convincing as the endearing, devoted patriarch. Shriya Saran is miscast as the anxious mother and wife, which explains the need for a change from the original screenplay. Tabu makes most of what she is given, enacting the frustration of an imposing cop who meets her toughest foe, and the woes of a mother whose son is missing. It's a different matter altogether that Meera and her husband (Rajat Kapoor) take over a day to respond to their son's disappearance and the screenplay doesn't rightfully address their own pathos. Apart from Tabu, only Kamlesh Sawant seems a good fit for the part of the cop who is constantly cross with Vijay.

But the main problem with this Drishyam lies in how Nishikant Kamat fails to establish the socio-cultural milieu which is essential to the story. The film is set in Pandolem in Goa yet the characters and their voices never feel that they belong to the place. This isn't a shot-by-shot remake of the Malayalam film and in that may lie some of its problems. With the sluggish first half in which Kamat gives Tabu a dramatic slo-mo entry, the more suspense-driven second half is a vast improvement. Kamat just about holds it together as he takes a will-they, won't-they approach to the Salgaonkars and engrosses viewers into their fate. Nonetheless, you'll be better off watching the Malayalam original.