Drishyam 2
Director: Jeethu Joseph
Cast: Mohanlal, Meena, Ansiba Hassan, Esther Anil, Asha Sarath, Siddique, KB Ganesh Kumar
A friend and fellow journalist recently joked, “Why couldn’t they have stopped Drishyam 1, instead of coming out with a sequel?” She had a point. Honestly, a franchise, and that’s what Drishyam seems to be transforming into, is hard to sustain. Yes, some like the Bond series have managed to stay on without flagging. But this is more of an exception.
Jeethu Joseph’s 2013 Drishyam was a phenomenal hit for two main reasons. Police brutality in states like Kerala is no secret, and both the middle class and the poor have suffered for years. The other was Mohanlal’s brilliant portrayal, and he is arguably one of the best in India, yes even the world, today, sliding into characters with astonishing ease.
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When Georgekutty, a man who couldn’t even pass the standard grade four in school due to abject poverty, he becomes the owner of a TV cable store, and endless hours of movie watching teaches him a variety of ways that come in handy when he has to support his small family of wife, Rani (Meena) and two daughters, Anju (Ansiba Hassan) and Anumol (Esther Anil), safe.
When Varun, the arrogantly brash teenage son of the Inspector General of Police (Geetha Prabhakar who plays Asha Sarath), takes a picture of Anju bathing during a school picnic and blackmails her into sleeping with him, it horribly wrong. Anju in an act of defense kills the boy, and all hell breaks loose.
Georgekutty is not a man to be afraid of, and the rest of the film is a thrilling game where he chases the police and saves his family. The twist, at the end, is just amazing.
Drishyam was remade in several languages - Tamil with Kamal Hassan trying the character of Mohanlal, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Sinhala and even believe it or not, Chinese. They all did extremely well with audiences everywhere supporting Georgekutty and his family.
So it came as no surprise that Joseph would be working on a sequel, Drishyam 2, which just came out in Amazon Prime. In Malayalam with the same star cast, Mohanlal and others, I felt the film has lost a bit of its heart-pounding excitement that was quite evident in the first part.
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Here Georgekutty (again Mohanlal) has climbed the ladder; he owns a theater and drives a fancy car. He has started drinking, much to the chagrin of his wife Rani (again played by Meena). But he calms her down by saying that when he’s with friends from the movie world, a little alcohol helps.
The man has an ambition. He has a story and script ready and is looking for a producer. The plot has come out in book form and that will turn the tide in his favor later on. The ancient case of Varun’s disappearance, in which his body was never found – though the public would remember it being buried beneath the newly built police station, a place the men in khaki would never dream of looking – is still the subject of local gossip. Georgekutty’s rising wealth also fuels jealousy.
When a new police chief takes charge of Georgekutty’s town, the case against him is reopened and the cat-and-mouse game begins when the teen’s parents fly down from the US, where Asha Sarath and her husband had migrated.
Georgekutty’s peaceful family life is re-examined as Anju developed epilepsy after the traumatic police interrogation in Drishyam’s part one. Her condition, propelled by new fear, worsens, but Georgekutty had promised that no matter what, he would protect his family.
Drishyam 2 talks about how he does this, although this part lacks a bit of the heart-pounding excitement we saw in the first edition. There are a few situations that are somewhat hard to believe, and the courtroom scene is terribly boring.
While Mohanlal shines with his cunning agents outsmarting them in ways they could never have dreamed of, the other actors really don’t suit him. In the end, he has to carry the film on his shoulder.
Drishyam may or may not have another part. Who knows! The work illustrates the dreams, aspirations and fears of an ordinary middle-class man – which are universal. It’s also about how he feels uncomfortable with the police. No wonder we support Georgekutty, we forgive him for his misdeeds as he is out to keep his family out of danger. And to the world, the family is still precious. Is it not?
Rating: 3/5
(Gautaman Bhaskaran is a film critic and author of a biography of Adoor Gopalakrishnan)
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