Thanks to Amazon Prime, we were able to watch Drishyam 2 early on. Each of us watched in our own free time and the man of the house, who shies away from watching tension dramas and prefers slapstick comedies, will probably watch it this weekend. I had dragged him to the theatre to watch Drishyam 1 after watching it first with the kids and their nanny. I saw it on TV once more, and after that I could take it no more and ran away each time it was aired on TV channels.
D2 is an intelligent remake and doesn't disappoint the average audience. The kids think it is superb just as they felt about Tovino's Forensic. Though I found the climax a bit far-fetched and based purely on luck, cinema being cinema and Mohanlal being Lalettan don't disappoint. His measured and quiet acting - unlike Kamal's emotional and over-the-top histrionics in D1 Tamil - is a pleasure to watch. That said, no actors are any less in terms of acting and Kamal is an all-time favourite, just that the audience in each Indian state is different and the story and characters need tweaking to suit their tastes.
However, D2 which has come six years after the blockbuster first, has the main veteran actors looking tired, botoxed and weird. Meena, despite looking uncharacteristically chic for a middle-class housewife going about her chores in neatly pinned saris and a heavily made-up face (the director himself admitting that she refused to tone down on the makeup as she's used to glamorous appearances on screen in other southern cinema) emotes well the tensions of a mother with teen daughters and the guilt of a murder cover-up. Jeethu takes care to repeat her saris though he should've made her cut veggies like a pro. The way she gingerly holds the knife while using a chopping board to cut beans - women in Kerala generally use a finger cap and hold beans in their hand while cutting them deftly and minutely without injuring their fingers - one can make out that she is a novice in the kitchen. Anyway, she makes the perfect pair for Mohanlal in his middle-age movies just as she did in D1, Munthirivallikal Thalirkumbol and Udayananu Thaaram.
Murali Gopi excels as the police officer out to avenge his friend, who lost her errant son in the first one. While Siddique is endearing as the forgiving father, Asha Sarath's mother does not show any remorse about her son's dubious ways and her wrong parenting that led to his death. She is hell bent on revenge, and it keeps the story going.
Three (4 in fact) people in the story come as a great surprise. One cultivated by the rival team and two by our hero, and we want the hero to win by hook or crook. That is what lends spark to the plot.
If D3 comes, I am not sure if I can endure another 2 hours of agonising over what our hero has to face next. If an accidental killer witnessed the hero burying the corpse in the PS under construction, next we may have a witness to the burning of bones. It reminds me of the thief on the tree who has become a crucial witness in the Sr Abhaya death that had dragged on for 28 years and helped in the sentencing of two culprits recently.
p.s. Anyone who likes to read could go through The Devotion of Suspect X, the Japanese novel which some say inspired D1. Director Jeethu however says he was inspired by a real-life incident.
p.p.s. Did anyone wonder - including the police - where Georgekutty got the dead calf to bury in D1? We dont see them tending to cattle or a cattleshed at home. If the resourceful G got it from outside - the way he procured the bones from the grave - wouldnt someone have remembered him coming to take it? But this is cinema, and as experienced storytellers tell us: Kadhayil chodyamilla (No questions in a story)!
#Drishyam2
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