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Drishyam 2 Review: Thrilling if you Haven’t Watched the Original!

A sequel to the 2015 thriller, Drishyam 2 stars the recurring cast with Ajay Devgn, Tabu, and Shriya Saran in the primary roles. The plot begins seven years after Sameer’s murder, as Vijay Salgaonkar and his family of four are still looking for inner peace. Meanwhile, a newly appointed cop, played by Akshaye Khanna, accompanied by Mira Deshmukh, reopens Sameer’s case to prove Salgaonkar’s involvement.

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Drishyam 2 was a comfortable script for screenwriters Aamil Keeyan Khan and Abhishek Pathak, as it is just a copy-paste version of the original. I’m still unsure about the changes Pathak made, as the Malayalam original is about the protagonist vs. the new cop, whereas the Hindi remake is about Salgaonkar vs. Ahlawat, Gaitonde, and Deshmukh. As a result, I personally felt that Akshaye’s character was slightly underutilized when compared to the original. Also, although I appreciate the 140-minute runtime, there is a slight desertion of the overall thrill that the Malayalam film had.

The character of Salgaonkar is quite different from the 2015 movie, given the seven-year gap, and Ajay Devgn handled all the subtle variations well. Tabu and Shriya Saran are on top of their game once again. I expected a bit more from Akshaye Khanna, but his character didnt carry much weight. Ishita Dutta, who now plays a more mature character, matched it with her decent performance. Overall, despite a ton of room for improvement, the acting from the entire cast was satisfactory.

On the technical side, Drishyam 2 is decent when it comes to the camera work by Sudhir K. Chaudhary, editing, and the background music by Devi Sri Prasad. Abhishek Pathak, as a director, showed some promise, and I feel he still has a lot to learn as far as understanding the cinematic sense of storytelling. If you remember the courtroom scene in the original when the camera slowly zooms in on George Kutty, accompanied by a fantastic background score? Believe it or not, but Pathak somehow decided to not include that shot, Jeethu kept it intact even in Venkatesh’s Telugu remake, but Pathak just couldn’t understand these nuanced masterstrokes.

Nevertheless, excluding a few drawbacks here and there, there is nothing inferior about Drishyam 2. It is definitely watchable in the theater, especially for people who haven’t yet watched the original.