Drishyam 3 Review: Come For Ajay Devgn, Stay For Jaideep Ahlawat

Continuing in the same vein as the first two films of the self-contained Drishyam universe, the past never goes out of focus in the concluding part of the Hindi-language franchise adapted from Jeethu Joseph's superhit Malayalam original.

It constantly impinges on the present as the barely educated protagonist, Vijay Salgaonkar (Ajay Devgn), stops at nothing to obfuscate the truth. The inveterate movie buff who takes his cues from the films that he has devoured over the years and believes that the one who controls the narrative holds all the aces.

There are two types of stories, he asserts: one hides the truth, the other becomes the truth. Who is telling the story is of utmost importance, he feels as a bunch of people around him ferret vigorously for leads that could nail him and his family for good.

Riding on a taut script that is predicated on mishaps and moves of the past, Drishyam: The Conclusion stitches together a tale that is fascinating enough not to lose much steam as it makes its way to a flummoxing and inconclusive denouement. The elements strewn along the pathway to the climax do their bit to hold the film together.

Drishyam: The Conclusion tells a story that is credited to the director and co-screenwriter Abhishek Pathak and not, as in the case of the first two films, to Jeethu Joseph. But the spirit that propels the hero's actions stems from the original construct.

The interface between the past and the present is an ever-evolving reality that pits the wily protagonist against the law enforcement and judicial process that begins to believe that it is just a move away from securing justice for a murdered boy.

Justice is only a word; it is the law that matters, somebody says. I don't want justice, I want revenge, says the mother of the homicide victim. So, between the yawning gap that has opened up between crime and punishment lie a whole range of misgivings.

This time around the law is represented by a particularly pugnacious a superintendent of police played scintillatingly by Jaideep Ahlawat. The actor steals not just a scene here and a scene there, but the entire film from under Devgn's nose.

That is saying a lot because Devgn, on his part, makes the most of the author-backed role of a man driven by a quiet resolve to do whatever it takes to keep his family out of harm's way.

Ahlawat is probably the best thing that ever happened to any of the Drishyam entries, inclusive of the Malayalam films that have so marvellously been shouldered by the redoubtable Mohanlal.

The actor's presence in the cast - Ahlawat steps into the boots vacated by Akshaye Khanna and they fit him just fine - considerably elevates the sequel thanks to the electrifying frisson that the sleuth's confrontations with Vijay generates.

This despite the fact that the shadow of what has gone, and of what the audience expects from what the present holds and what lies in the future, weighs heavy on Drishyam: The Conclusion. Dispelling the burden of difficult-to-match benchmarks takes some doing.

The effort assumes the form of a screenplay (written by Pathak with Aamil Keeyan Khan and Parveez Shaikh) that makes no detours of any kind in the first half. It is less gripping in the second but only marginally so.

The first half is principally a police procedural enlivened by Ahlawat and Kamlesh Sawant (Inspector Laxmikant Gaitonde, who reminds a colleague that the police top brass may come and go but men like him are here to stay).

Post-interval, the film turns into a courtroom drama spearheaded by Prakash Raj in the robes of a public prosecutor who has never lost a case in a career of 30-odd years. But through it all, the spotlight is on the traps that Vijay lays for his tormentors with an eye on covering his tracks.

The police super, Rajveer Tomar, cottons on to Vijay's plans but catching the man off guard proves far more difficult than the lawman and his team anticipate.

Fabrication of alibis, concealment, manipulation and destruction of evidence and unbudging efforts to ward off legal action and punitive

measures is Vijay Salgaonkar's stock-in-trade in keeping with how things were in the plotlines of the earlier films.

In a story that moves away almost completely from Drishyam 3: The Past Never Stays Silent (the Malayalam film released earlier this year), the protagonist thinks up new stratagems as he goes about with as much zeal as ever to shield his family - wife Nandini (Shriya Saran) and daughters Anju (Ishita Dutta) and Anu (Mrunal Jadhav).

The law closes in on Vijay as his deeds catch up with him. Ghosts from the past like gravedigger Savio D'Souza and medical college security guard Raghu Naik hover around him relentlessly while skeletons (literally) in his cupboard return to haunt him.

In the third and final outing of Drishyam, the man determined to protect his family at all cost diverges from Georgekutty's course in significant ways in a bid to spring a few surprises upon his tormentors and the audience.

Aware that it might be past its sell-by date, The sequel seeks to acquire a life of its own by devising an independent narrative arc. Drishyam: The Conclusion is not a remake in the strictest sense of the term.

The film has moments that are go-for-the-jugular intense, none more so than a long matchmaking sequence involving Anju and a prospective groom that is disrupted by Rajveer Tomar. The SP turns party-pooper and tells Vijay that the outcome of the battle between right and wrong, between truth and lies, is a foregone conclusion.

But is it? As the tussle unfolds and Vijay is increasingly cornered, his mind continues to tick. His actions and reactions to the threats he faces keep the audience guessing.

To add to the challenges that Vijay must reckon with, public prosecutor, Indrajith Shetty (played with customary, effortless aplomb by Prakash Raj), queers the pitch for him by literally digging up a grave.

And, of course, there is former police IG Meera Deshmukh (Tabu), around the death and disappearance of whose son the three films pivot, and a cool, calculating Mahesh Deshmukh (Rajat Kapoor) snapping at Vijay's heels.

It all adds up rather neatly to make Drishyam: The Conclusion a worthy parting shot. Come for Ajay Devgn, stay for Jaideep Ahlawat. The former delivers the goods. The latter adds weight, the sort that makes an indelible impression.