3 Years of Drishyam + Ajay Devgn's great movie and he ROCKS again - Page 2

3 Years Later Ajay Devgn's Superhit Drishyam Is Still A Fan Favourite

It's been three years on Tuesday since the release of Ajay Devgn starrer movie Drishyam, the movie which did wonders at the box office. Drishyam is a remake of hit Malayalam movie with the same name. The movie is set in Goa and has Ajay Devgn playing the role of Vijay Salgaonkar, a family man.

A clutch of movies has trudged a similar path in past years, most notably the Malayalam 'Drishyam', and the Tamil remake 'Papanasam', both written and directed by Jeethu Joseph. The Hindi remake, 'Drishyam', credits Joseph's original story, even though its central conceit bears more than a passing resemblance to the super-popular Japanese thriller 'The Devotion of Suspect X'.

However, the big difference between The Devotion of Suspect X and Drishyam is that there's a social commentary that's identifiably Indian, the cable operator's daughter has no chance of getting protection from the Inspector General's son. No one under these circumstances would think there's any point being honest because the entire police establishment will come crashing down upon the Salgaonkars if they point fingers at the Inspector General's son.

What made the movie a hit is the way the movie unravels for the audience, the street-smartness of a near-illiterate man intent on protecting his family at any cost, and how forgiveness can, sometimes, lead to a kind of acceptance. And in the way, it delivers the stinging twist to the tale.

This brings us to one of Drishyam's greatest strengths and critical flaws: Meera Deshmukh. You can almost feel the relief that surges through the audience when Tabu as Meera makes her entry. By this time, we've spent about an hour watching Devgn, Shriya Saran and a host of minor characters trying to be convincing.

In the Malayalam original, Mohanlal manages this ably. He plays a bumbling simpleton initially, keeping the audience entertained with silly comic scenes that endear us to him. This makes the later scenes that slowly reveal his calculating genius truly engaging.

Devgn's character is so unremarkable that no one imagines he'd come up with the brilliant and elaborate charade that he does.