The Crime Was Not in The Film; The Crime is The Film !
Rating: 1.5/5
I have been watching and writing about films for over thirty years, and I do not hand out the word “disappointment” lightly. The Hindi conclusion of Drishyam 3 earns it.
Hindi cinema makes more films than any industry in the world, and it has long had a reputation for letting its audience down. Part of that is the quality of the writing. The larger part, I think, is how little regard it shows for viewers who now watch Korean thrillers, European crime dramas and Malayalam cinema as a matter of routine. These are people who know what a tight screenplay looks like. The Hindi Drishyam 3 assumes they won’t notice when they get something else. The logic is outlandish, the legal procedure makes no sense, and the performances are pitched far louder than the material deserves.
Set it beside Mohanlal’s Drishyam 3 and the comparison is almost unfair. The Hindi version is an apology to the franchise it comes from.
I want to be precise about my complaint, because it is easy to misread. I have no objection to a remake that departs from the Malayalam plot. Stories have to change if cinema is to stay alive, and Munna Bhai MBBS showed years ago how a remake can take its source somewhere new and still be a fine film. What baffles me is that something as well made as Drishyam was damaged for no visible reason, and with a weak story and a weaker screenplay.
The casting makes it worse. Jaideep Ahlawat is one of the best actors working in Hindi cinema today, yet his dialogue and screen presence here belong to the 1970s and 80s. I would like someone to tell me which Superintendent of Police (Crime), in recent years, has ever spoken or carried himself like this. Prakash Raj, another actor I admire a great deal, is given the part of a criminal lawyer that is contrived and, frankly, clueless. As for the courtroom scenes, I cannot imagine what the writer had been watching, or consuming, before sitting down to write them. Anyone who has seen the earlier Drishyam films, or any decent courtroom drama in recent years, will find them hard to sit through.
I hope the team behind this film, and whoever holds the rights to the franchise, will stop here. The series has real merit, and it does not deserve more of this.
If you want to know what the difference looks like, watch the original with Mohanlal as Georgekutty. You do not need to understand a word of Malayalam. The subtitles, Mohanlal and every actor around him will carry you through, and you will stay on the edge of your seat and fully absorbed from start to finish.
There is one thing in the Hindi version worth praising, and that is Kamlesh Sawant as Sub-Inspector Laxmikant Gaitonde. His presence, his characterisation and his portrayal are all excellent. He is the real hero of this Drishyam and the only reason the conclusion is not a total loss. He evokes hate, he lives the character to the perfection.
The film will most likely do well at the box office, and that success belongs to Georgekutty.
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