A-drishyam (the unseen). Review on Drishyam

Caught ‘Drishyam’ over the weekend past.  The promos were very promising and Nishikant Kamat has a very good track record.  Also, the original versions in regional languages did very well, since they had a strong story line.  Went expecting a gripping cinematic experience.

As it turns out, the whole film, is a flashback, though not obviously so as it’s only the opening and closing scenes which let that out.

Vijay Salgaocar(Ajay Devgn) is an ordinary, middle class entrepreneur in a sleepy hamlet in GOA – Pondolim, if you please, living in a comfortable place with his pretty wife and two daughters.

He runs a cable TV service locally and indulges in his favourite passion – watching films day in day out.  He is such a film freak, that he lets them dictate his every emotion, repeat, every.

He is well loved and accepted by the locals there and in a state of bliss and into this small paradise, one day, enters a villain.  An unfortunate incident triggers of the whole sequence of events which form the storyline.

While it does have its good moments, I didn’t much care for the fact that the viewer is clued in right from the start and what unfolds on the screen is only for the characters in the film.

There are only two songs, which play out in the background hence don’t hold up the narrative.

The elder daughter(Ishita Dutta – Tanushree’s sis) looks pretty and has a future and the chubby young girl, Anu(Mrinal Jadhav), too has acted well.  Shriya Saran somehow doesn’t fit in and I found her diction laboured.

The attention to detail was a deft touch eg. Using a mobile phone to lead the cops astray/disposing off the evidence/pre-empting the line of questioning etc.

The cop Gaitonde(Kamlesh Sawant) was excellent!  Tabu as a hard as nails, IG of police was just about okay.  In my view, she tried too hard…I mean, going around hammering suspects/under trials, in the times of media vigilance is a bit too much.  And her assertion “I don’t care.” rings hollow.

I found some loose ends in the plot:  While we all know what levels the cops can stoop to, a male cop manhandling women and kids?  Why didn’t the Salgaocars file a suit against the cops for wrongful confinement, assault & battery, involve the NCW etc since he was shown as knowledgeable in these aspects, given the filmi diet?

Overall, the film is a onetime watch, unlike this directors ‘A Wednesday’ which was taut and gripping, and is worth an encore anytime.

My rating 2.75