Movie Review: Drishyam-True to its roots

Nishikant Kamat's Hindi remake of the Malayalam blockbuster Drishyam is deliciously Hitchcockian

"A blockbuster film is a gigantic creature custom-built by hand. Like a Siberian tiger, it demands our attention - but it is also very rare," wrote Kevin Kelly in The New York Times in 2008. I don't know which movie he was talking about but he might as well be talking about Drishyam, the 2013 blockbuster of Malayalam cinema, which rewrote box-office records. This Jeethu Joseph-directed movie created such waves that within 18 months of its release, it has been remade in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and now Hindi.

Nishikant Kamat was entrusted with the responsibility to be at the helm of affairs of the Hindi version. The movie is about Vijay Salgaonkar (Ajay Devgn), a cable TV operator in a nondescript part of Goa, who couldn't have asked for a happier life with his wife and two daughters and unfettered access to Hindi cinema. An incident involving his high-school going elder daughter and someone she meets at a summer camp torpedoes his family's mirthful existence. Rest of the movie is how this school dropout uses his movie knowledge to the hilt and makes sure his family comes out of this glorious mess unscathed.

As someone who watched the original, I would say Kamat didn't really veer from the script and almost stayed true to the source material frame to frame. Maybe he was playing safe because his previous foray into remake (John Abraham-starrer Force, inspired from the Tamil hit Kaakha Kaakha) didn't exactly set the cash registers abuzz. With Force, Kamat tried to tinker with the original and as the result was a dud, he took the safer route this time. Even the dialogues looked more like straight out of Google translate than a human brain. Despite these misgivings, the movie is genuinely good because Jeethu Joseph's script has enough material to keep the audience riveted, the stilted dialogue notwithstanding.

The first half-an-hour is sedate but things pick up as soon as Vijay's elder daughter (Ishita Dutta) and wife (a functional Shriya Saran) are caught up in an incident that was to alter their lives forever. It's not for nothing that even Kamal Haasan, who is pathologically allergic to remakes, decided to act in the Tamil version, which did quite well at the cinemas. The movie works on multiple levels like the wow-inducing moments that the second half is replete with. The elaborate 'lie' that the family lives up to is bound to give chills to any sentient person. There was enough ice in Tabu's voice for a serviceable martini. She plays the role of a police officer whose son happens to vanish one day and she knows that this family of four is responsible for that. Kamlesh Sawant as the scheming police inspector who has personal scores to settle with Vijay is a brilliant piece of casting. Rajat Kapoor as the sole voice of reason and Tabu's husband is quite good.

The reason Drishyam works so well is because of Devgn's stellar outing as a doting father and a streetsmart man. His trademark scowl, his under-stated persona that had been missing in his last few movies is in ample display out here. Kamat ensures Devgn revels in his familiar territory of personifying intensity. Even though he is mostly on directorial autopilot, Kamat captures the small-town really well. As is the norm with Bollywood remakes of South Indian movies, they tend to go over the top for the lavish look, which was never to be seen in the original. But good sense prevailed on Kamat and the movie stays true to its roots.

Right from the Kadamba bus stand to the bridge en route to Panaji and the local dialect, Kamat has really put his heart and soul into getting the milieu right. I chuckled when I saw Kamat making a meta reference to Joseph by making his protagonist sign his name in a hotel registry.

The second half is so action packed that it gets a tad ridiculous, which is good. If 2015 has another Hindi movie with even half as gripping a second half, consider this as a staggeringly good year for Bollywood. Even the editing looked tighter in the Hindi version than the original.

Avinash Arun's cinematography with the vertiginous shots that show the resplendent Goan beauty deserves special mention. It's as if he picked up from where he left in his directorial debut, a Marathi movie called Killa. Only the background music by Sameer Phatarpekar, which was mostly hammed up and seldom stirring, left me cold. But I'm just being my nitpicking self. Do not miss out on this deliciously Hitchcockian movie.