Drishyam (2015)

Drishyam is an exceptional movie, a rare delight for people looking for quality entertainment, it is a thriller woven around family.

The protagonist of the story (Ajay Devgan) is a 4^th grade fail, cable operator in a small town living with his wife and 2 daughters. Although he is not well educated but he is an extremely smart guy, much of his knowledge is derived by movies as he is an avid movie buff, who watches movie every night at his office. One morning he returns home to find that his family has accidently killed one guy who was trying to blackmail his daughter. He ask his family to refrain from reporting the incidence to Police and starts doing the cleanup, and as soon as he realizes the boy they have killed was Goa Police I.G’s (Tabu) son he starts building up an elaborate plan to defend his family against Police, and how he achieves it forms the rest of the story.

The beauty of the film lies in it being honest to the concept, no unnecessary side tracks, no melodrama, and no guilty conscience about doing the wrong thing. There is hardly any scene in the movie that is irrelevant to the story, last such movie I saw with such perfect screenplay was ‘Samay: When Time Strikes’ (2003).

The director has followed the principle of Chekhov's gun throughout the movie. This principle states that whatever thing you show is a story/drama/movie should have some use in the story. Like, if in a play there is a gun hanging on the wall as a show piece, than it must be fired during the show at some time, otherwise there is no point in hanging that gun in the first place. In this movie as well the director has used everything to carry forward the story; everything that looked as trivial initially has its importance.

The movie is an official remake of 2013 blockbuster Malayalam movie ‘Drishyam’ by Jeethu Joseph. The only unfortunate part about the movie is the arrogance of the makers of the original Malayalam movie, as they claim it to be an original story, and to my knowledge have even categorically denied that it is inspired by ‘The Devotion of Suspect X’ a best selling 2005 Japanese novel by Keigo Higashino. The official rights of this novel have been purchased by Ekta Kapoor for a movie to be directed by Sujoy Ghosh.

However as I have read it (English translation), I can say the movie is indeed inspired by the above mentioned novel, the basic premise and lot of story elements have been taken from that story. It is just like the case of ‘Five Point Someone’ and ‘3 Idiots’ where the makes declined that the movie has anything to do with the novel, but the person who has seen the movie as well as read the novel knows the truth. I am not against inspiration, but proper credit needs to be given to deserving party.

Leaving that blemish, this is a fantastic movie, don’t miss it.

Rating: ****

Minions (2015)

Hindi movies have had a long history of brutally sidelining and ignoring its supporting cast, it is just the protagonists (Hero and Heroine) that matter, rest are expendable, hero’s sister is there to be raped, their father and brothers are there to be killed, and mother to be blind. Comedians have a parallel track rather than them being an integral part of the story. We have never bothered about them till date, so what has changed?

To some extent there have been two important turning points in contemporary Hindi cinema which have actually given some importance to these much deserving character roles, first being, Paresh Rawal’s role in ‘Hera Pheri’, which not only gave much acclaim to the versatile actor, but also for the first time made a supporting character more loved one than the leading actors, and secondly the entry of Amithabh Bachhan in supporting roles, which made film makers write specific roles for him. What followed was a string of talented character artistes making it big in this industry.

Similarly there have been two recent events in Hollywood, where some supporting characters got so much admiration from fans that they got themselves their own private movie. First being ‘Penguins of Madagascar’ and second being movie in question ‘Minions’. Both animation movies I must add.

People who have watched ‘Despicable Me’ - I and II, will swear that the best thing about them were Minions. However even for people who haven’t watched the previous movies there is no problem while watching this movie as this is a spinoff cum prequel to those two movies.

First things first, to make a movie where the language spoken by title characters can’t be  understood by people is a problem, you can understand only a few of their words like, ‘thank you’, ‘bob’ and of course ‘banana’, however while watching the movie you never feel the need to understand what they are saying, and that adds to the charm of the characters and movie. You don’t get what they are saying but you laugh your lungs out during most of the time. This movie has scenes which will bring the house down with laughter.

The story of the movie is about a tribe of Minions whose sole purpose of existence is to find a baddest (intentional spelling mistake) villain and serve as his/her henchman. Do they succeed in doing so make the rest of the movie.

I have been waiting about six months for this movie, so when the choice came between watching this movie or much appreciated ‘Bahubali’, I made the tough call, and never regretted it for a minute; to tell you the truth, I was felling down and low for a couple of days and I desperately needed something crazy and hilarious, which exactly it was, rather than going for an action packed drama I chose the idiotic yet adorable, and cute as hell Minions. People are going to become fan of ‘Bob’ after watching this movie that I can guarantee.

If you are a minion fan than this is a must watch movie for you, if not, then watch this movie and become a fan. Go Bananas.

Rating ***1/2.