<h2>Director: Abhishek Pathak&nbsp; Actors: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ajay Devgn Rating: 3 stars</h2>
In terms of sheer screen time, and in effect, the billing on the marquee &mdash; <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/bollywood-news/article/drishyam-the-conclusion-jaideep-ahlawat-reacts-to-comparisons-with-akshay-khanna-23649162" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Jaideep Ahlawat</a>, 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&rsquo;s convinced about who committed the said crime &mdash; they simply can&rsquo;t find sufficient evidences to nail the said criminal.
This role was reported to be reprised by Akshaye Khanna from the film&rsquo;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 <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/bollywood-news/article/drishyam-3-ajay-devgn-reveals-why-he-called-mohanlal-for-approval-i-wanted-him-to-23652829" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Mohanlal</a>, 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&rsquo;s release. As with all franchises, familiarity breeds content. There&rsquo;s comfort in re-entering a world you&rsquo;ve already experienced and enjoyed &mdash; 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 &mdash; my local theatre had to open a separate entrance to manage the footfall &mdash; is it suitably proves that film buffs aren&rsquo;t particularly averse to mid-budget entertainers on the big screen. All&rsquo;s not lost to the bloody OTT.
And that it&rsquo;s possible to entice them with proper characters and storytelling, as against merely loud movie stars, and senseless spectacle for spectacle&rsquo;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 &mdash; rather than severe complexities in the plot per se.
Consider the &lsquo;mamaji&rsquo; sequence, where Jaideep first meets Ajay, as in Vijay &mdash; 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&rsquo;t take your eyes off the unpredictable Jaideep, wondering what he&rsquo;ll do next. As an actor, similarly with minor cracks on his instantly captivating face, blessed with such natural swag, and commanding screen presence &mdash; Jaideep could well grow into the Om Puri of his times!
<a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/bollywood-news/article/drishyam-3-ajay-devgn-reveals-why-kajol-would-ruin-films-plot-23651906" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Ajay</a>, equally comfy in his skin, is happy to stay muted, throughout. It&rsquo;s what he&rsquo;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&rsquo;s character will get away with an old murder, yet again. There&rsquo;s also the moral question in all of this. But that&rsquo;s obviously not under discussion/debate.
The film opens with Tabu&rsquo;s character attempting suicide &mdash; talking about how a &ldquo;powerful person&rdquo; feels so helpless when they can&rsquo;t get justice for their own son&rsquo;s loss. Usually, powerful people don&rsquo;t call themselves so &mdash; only others do.
We barely see <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/bollywood-news/article/tabu-seeks-legal-protection-against-unauthorised-use-of-her-identity-23643242" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Tabu </a>as the senior police officer, from thereon in the investigation &mdash; that deals not as much with the supposed murder, as to establish if evidences were tampered with. And that&rsquo;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. &nbsp;Likewise, it speaks of the competent, confident direction, by Abhishek Pathak, who&rsquo;d also helmed the film&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not the case here. The script is altogether anew.
I did click on Jeethu&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/regional-indian-cinema-news/article/drishyam-3-ott-release-heres-where-and-when-you-can-watch-mohanlals-film-23634986" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Drishyam 3 </a>(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 &mdash; just so one doesn&rsquo;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 &mdash; 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 &mdash; that&rsquo;s, chiefly, the challenge of screen time, isn&rsquo;t it? Drishyam: The Conclusion meets it well. And, frankly, that&rsquo;s all the conclusion you should wanna draw.&nbsp;

Familiarity breeds content as you sit through Ajay Devgn-starrer final instalment Drishyam The Conclusion, which feels like being with an old friend.

Drishyam 3 movie review: Ajay Devgn's finale is a celebration

Drishyam 3 box office collection day 1: Ajay Devgn scores his biggest opening ever, earns THIS much

Familiarity breeds content as you sit through a film that feels like being with an old friend 

Drishyam: the celebration!

Director: Abhishek Pathak
Actors: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ajay Devgn
Rating: 3 stars

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