Drishyam 2 review | Newstodayonline24

Drishyam 2 Review: On the acting front, Ajay Devgn pushes through Drishyam 2 with confidence. But Akshaye Khanna is a bunch of manners.

We all know what Vijay Salgaonkar was up to last time. He returns with more of the same, juggling crucial evidence that could help the police bring him to justice. But Drishyam 2 can’t be the wonder it aspires to be because all its key secrets are out in the open.

The 2021 sequel to the original Malayalam Drishyam (2013) has been on a streaming platform for over a year. Everyone is aware that the Salgaonkar family’s troubles are far from over. The cops are snooping again and Vijay has to do everything he can to stop the snooping lawmen.

A 140-minute sequel that is both unavoidable and totally free, Drishyam 2 shows us why and how Vijay Salgaonkar throws caution to the wind when the police close in on him seven years later with the help of an accidental witness, a limited edition. book, and two undercover cops.

No matter how technically proficient this scene-to-scene Hindi rehash is, Drishyam 2, adapted by Aamil Keeyan Khan and director Abhishek Pathak from Jeethu Joseph’s original screenplay, struggles to thrill and intrigue. Spawning countless versions in a variety of languages, the story of the cable operator turned movie exhibitor and his family holds no surprises at all.

The twists, turns, and tricks play their inevitable role, but they produce no real magic. We are aware of what is going on in the protagonist’s mind and what is unfolding in and around his house. So it’s easy to stay one step ahead of him, and the movie, at all times.

Lead actor Ajay Devgn is not short on a role that requires him to continue to be his surly and reserved self on screen. The hero cinema is thriving and is now prosperous enough to hire a screenwriter and plan a foray into film production.

Everything seems to be going well for Vijay when the new Goan Police Inspector General Tarun Ahlawat, played by Akshaye Khanna, arrives in Pondolem. At his behest, the case that the Salgaonkars believed they had definitely left behind is reopened at the insistence of ex-GI Meera Deshmukh (Tabu), who is in town for the annual memorial service for her dead son.

The reinvigorated police investigation into the murder of teenager Samir Deshmukh puts the Salgaonkar family back under the scanner, forcing Vijay to go into overdrive to deflect the needle of suspicion and mislead the police into a dead end.

The problem with Drishyam 2 is that Vijay Salgaonkar’s ploy to prevent the police from getting to the bottom of the truth that is buried in the most unlikely places depends on some rather arbitrary, convenient and heavy-handed manipulation by men susceptible to the lure of the money and false hopes.

Vijay’s self-preservation moves in the sequel aren’t in the same league in terms of cunning intelligence level as the ones he used in Drishyam 1 while creating a web of effective alibis to evade legal punishment. In this sequel, since the audience is aware that Vijay will get away with it again and that the police’s plans to catch the Salgaonkars are doomed to fail, there isn’t much to keep us hooked.

Nandini Salgaonkar (Shriya Saran) worries endlessly and sports a startled look, a response to her husband’s insistence that she keep quiet at all costs about what happened seven years ago. Their epileptic eldest daughter, Anju (Ishita Dutta), is always on the brink of a relapse in the face of the ever-increasing pressure on them. Vijay is a tough nut to crack, but the rest of the family is remarkably vulnerable.

The need to hide their dark truth, come what may, pushes Nandini and her daughters into unsettling situations, one of which is sparked by a visit from the Police IG that catches them off guard and exposes the depth of anguish they face. three women must face. With things spiraling out of control.

Tarun Ahlawat places the cat among the pigeons. Vijay, of course, is not an ordinary pigeon. It is difficult to ruffle their feathers. “” Dil aur dimaag ke beech mein maine hamesha dimaag ki suni hai( Between the heart and the head, I have always paid attention to the ultimate),” he says matter- of- factly when his wife suggests it might be time for the couple. make a clean chest and face the consequences of confession. That, says Vijay, will not be an option. His dimaag will continue to trump his dil.

It is true that Drishyam fans are legion. This reviewer is not one of them. Embedded in its ‘clever’ plot is an unabashed glorification of a man who will do whatever it takes to save his family: morality be damned. It is akin to suggesting that no matter how many lines one crosses, any act is acceptable as long as its purpose is to protect oneself against enemy forces. Doesn’t that notion form the very basis of fascism in the broader context of human behaviour?

Manipulating the law is one thing, but presenting a man who delights in playing fair as someone worth emulating is problematic, to say the least. Drishyam rests on two deceptive (and fake) planks. One would have us believe that watching a lot of movies can arm a person with uncommon mental acuity. This assumption is especially dangerous at a time when real-life criminals routinely draw inspiration and ideas from filmed fiction (one need look no further than yesterday’s newspaper for an example).

The other confers legitimacy on dubious moral decisions. This is not clever writing; it is a distorted thought. Yes, gadgets of the type we see in Drishyam require some work. To that extent, the creators of the movie and its sequel can claim some credit.

On the acting front, Ajay Devgn pushes through Drishyam 2 with confidence. But Akshaye Khanna is a bunch of manners. There’s little about his overly affected performance that could cast a shadow over Murali Gopy’s take on the character. The rest of the cast moves on without feeling the need to push their roles in new directions.

Drishyam 2 is shorter than the original and thinks about some cosmetic changes. It is, however, at best a dull, albeit consistent carbon copy, with just a loose line here or insignificant stroke there that could be considered something new. It’s not enough to hold the movie together.

Rating: 2/5