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: ****