02 October,2026 10:08 PM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
(L-R) Jaideep Ahlawat and Ajay Devgn. Pic via Instagram
In terms of sheer screen time, and in effect, the billing on the marquee - Jaideep Ahlawat, introduced in the threequel of Drishyam, is pretty much the lead actor of the film.
He plays the cop reopening the old case about a missing/dead teenage boy that was basically a perfect murder. In the sense that everybody's convinced about who committed the said crime - they simply can't find sufficient evidences to nail the said criminal.
This role was reported to be reprised by Akshaye Khanna from the film's sequel. I think he missed out, big time.
That apart, the world of Drishyam is roughly the same as visualised by writer-director Jeethu Joseph in the Malayalam original with Mohanlal, remade into Tamil with Kamal Haasan, and adapted from Kerala into Goa, with Ajay Devgn as the hero, Vijay Salgaonkar, hiding a crime; Tabu for the top cop, whose son was murdered (the crime itself); down to Inspector Gaitonde (Kamlesh Sawant) for the comic element, with the audiences favourably responding to his lame one-liners.
This also explains massive crowds in the morning show of this film's release. As with all franchises, familiarity breeds content. There's comfort in re-entering a world you've already experienced and enjoyed - in the same way that we revisit the same old friends, over and over again.
The enthusiasm is infectious. What sets apart the unprecedented, post-pandemic commercial success of Drishyam, however - my local theatre had to open a separate entrance to manage the footfall - is it suitably proves that film buffs aren't particularly averse to mid-budget entertainers on the big screen. All's not lost to the bloody OTT.
And that it's possible to entice them with proper characters and storytelling, as against merely loud movie stars, and senseless spectacle for spectacle's sake.
A great way to reverse collective consumption is, perhaps, to deliver on genre fiction. Drishyam: The Conclusion is, of course, a suspense thriller, pulled through by actors, foremost - rather than severe complexities in the plot per se.
Consider the âmamaji' sequence, where Jaideep first meets Ajay, as in Vijay - barging into his home while the family is negotiating a marriage proposal for their daughter. Jaideep, as the cop, just plonks himself in the living room.
The tension/unease is palpable. You can't take your eyes off the unpredictable Jaideep, wondering what he'll do next. As an actor, similarly with minor cracks on his instantly captivating face, blessed with such natural swag, and commanding screen presence - Jaideep could well grow into the Om Puri of his times!
Ajay, equally comfy in his skin, is happy to stay muted, throughout. It's what he's thinking in his head that matters more.
There were parts in the pic that I could hear loud claps from the backbenches, for every time it felt like Ajay's character will get away with an old murder, yet again. There's also the moral question in all of this. But that's obviously not under discussion/debate.
The film opens with Tabu's character attempting suicide - talking about how a "powerful person" feels so helpless when they can't get justice for their own son's loss. Usually, powerful people don't call themselves so - only others do.
We barely see Tabu as the senior police officer, from thereon in the investigation - that deals not as much with the supposed murder, as to establish if evidences were tampered with. And that's circumstantial proof in itself.
This line of the prosecution is led by a hot-shot lawyer (Prakash Raj). It heightens the drama all the more. Likewise, it speaks of the competent, confident direction, by Abhishek Pathak, who'd also helmed the film's sequel.
Which was fun. But such a scene-by-scene remake that, having watched the original in Malayalam, had totally messed up my Hindi experience. That's not the case here. The script is altogether anew.
I did click on Jeethu's Drishyam 3 (Prime Video) that starts off rather well, remaining more minimalist as Malayalam cinema, while the Hindi threequel veers slightly in the general direction of bombastic Bollywood, with deep close-ups, etc, but never dangerously close.
I switched off the Mallu version in 45 minutes or so, to save it for later - just so one doesn't end up incessantly comparing the two films, or Mohanlal with Ajay Devgn, much as we love both.
As for whether this final instalment stands up to its own second part - I thought the latter had a much better, final 15 minutes of the super twist in the tail.
This felt more engaging as a drama, holding your attention, through and through - that's, chiefly, the challenge of screen time, isn't it? Drishyam: The Conclusion meets it well. And, frankly, that's all the conclusion you should wanna draw.
