Genre: Crime, Thriller
Release Date: 18th November, 2022
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Shriya Saran, Tabu, Akshaye Khanna
Writer: Jeethu Joseph
Director: Abhishek Pathak
Producer/s: Kumar Mangat Pathak, Abhishek Pathak, Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar
Plot:
Star cast: Ajay Devgn, Akshaye Khanna, Tabu, Shriya Saran, Ishita Dutta, Rajat Kapoor, Mrunal Jadhav, Kamlesh Sawant & others
Director: Abhishek Pathak
Producers: Bhushan Kumar, Kumar Mangat Pathak, Abhishek Pathak & Krishnan Kumar
Drishyam 2 Box Office Review: Pre-Release Buzz & Impression
Amid a lot of negativity revolving around Bollywood, this film luckily didn’t attract much of unwanted attention on social media. Despite being an official remake of Mohanlal’s Tamil film of the same, which released last year, there wasn’t much of bashing due to a tag of remake on it, which is quite surprising.
After securing a cult following for the prequel, there has been a curiousity among audience to know what’s next in the store. The trailer clicked in a right way with the viewers in generating buzz. Further, ground promotions helped in building hype and undercurrent around the release of the film.
Staying away from giving many media interviews and choosing TV shows to reach the audience has worked in favour so far and the response in advance booking reflects it.
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Drishyam 2 Box Office Review: Initial Start, Positives & Negatives
Drishyam 2 is off to a good start at the box office and the first reactions from the ticket buying audience have been good too. Given the underwhelming performance of Bollywood biggies this year, the first expectation from the film was to score 10 crore+ on the opening day. However, the Ajay Devgn Starrer has taken a much better start.
Speaking about the positives, the film isn’t in a dicey position despite being a remake. The original film starring Mohanlal isn’t available in Hindi dubbed version, so there’s no saturation of the audience and there’s a scope to enjoy good footfalls. We saw how the popularity and reach of Vikram Vedha (Hindi dub) starring Vijay Sethupathi and R Madhavan affected even a well made remake starring Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan. Here, there’s no such situation.
The word-of-mouth has been positive so far, so the film will definitely show boost on Saturday and Sunday. Post that, healthy numbers are expected over weekdays as such content driven films consistently bring in the audience even on working days.
Drishyam 2 is an edge-of-the-seat suspense thriller with a content which isn’t restricted to any one section. Both classes and masses can watch it. Also, unlike Ajay Devgn’s Runway 34 and Thank God, this one has its suitable audience in all three centres i.e. A, B and C.
Now coming to negatives, Drishyam 2 has a window of just one week to enjoy solo run. Of course, there’s Uunchai and Kantara attracting their share of viewers already, it’s Varun Dhawan led Bhediya which will take away a good chunk of screens from the film on next Friday.
The genre of suspense thriller don’t often get a benefit of repeat audience and the same is the case with Ajay Devgn’s film.
Drishyam 2 Box Office Review: Final Verdict
On the whole, Drishyam 2 has more good things working in its favour than negatives. Unlike some recent remakes, this one will perform good at the box office, thus giving some relief to Bollywood after back to back flops. Even for Ajay Devgn, this one comes as a saviour after failures like Runway 34 and Thank God.
The film is expected to earn anywhere between 100-115 crores in India.
Stay tuned to Koimoi for more box office updates and stories!
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Drishyam 2 Movie Review Rating:
Star Cast: Ajay Devgn, Shriya Saran, Akshaye Khanna, Tabu, Ishita Dutta, Mrunal Jadhav, Saurabh Shukla, Rajat Kapoor
Director: Abhishek Pathak
What’s Good: Ajay Devgn’s attempt at matching the Mohanlal magic!
What’s Bad: Abhishek Pathak’s attempt at adding things to Jeetu Joseph’s tried and tested recipe
Loo Break: Do whatever you want to, just don’t move in the last hour!
Watch or Not?: Read the headline once again for this!
Available On: Theatrical release
Runtime: 142 Minutes
User Rating:
7 years later, our smartest common man Vijay Salgaonkar (Ajay Devgn) has now leveled up in society, from being a cable operator to being a theatre owner who also decides what films to play for maximum profit after reviewing them. The family doesn’t stay all happy as the Police re-enter their life and this time it’s IG Tarun Ahlawat (Akshaye Khanna), a colleague of Meera Deshmukh (Tabu).
Tarun invests a couple of years in Vijay’s family to gather some proof to prove them guilty in court. Once he finds something, he gathers them all and if you’ve seen the prequel you know the drill. The last hour of the film is all about how Vijay again goes to every extent to protect his family from going to jail for a crime they’ve committed while defending themselves.
Drishyam 2 Movie Review: Script Analysis
Before I start to pour my heart out regarding what’s good & bad about the film, let’s make one thing clear: this is a remake & when I praise certain things about it, the actual credit should go to Jeethu Joseph for achieving that back in 2021. I especially gave the disclaimer because of kudos to Jeetu for maintaining the continuity of the narrative. Ajay‘s version also benefits a lot from the goods of the OG but it’s the unnecessary additions that spoiled the party for me.
The forced addition of bringing the ‘corrupt’ goon Gaitonde back, messes with the lead investigator’s (Akshaye Khanna) character to almost make him look ‘limited’ with his research hence downplaying the combat between the two opposite forces. Jeethu’s version, while building the plot, had a certain intrigue built around its side characters from the village which is vehemently missing in this one. Sudhir K. Chaudhary’s camerawork does give a more polished feel to the gloomy setup, but when I think of it Jeethu’s attempt of ‘keeping it basic’ with Satheesh Kurup had a better impact than this.
Drishyam 2 Movie Review: Star Performance
When you think of actors remaking Mohanlal’s magic from the original, there is no other perfect option than Ajay Devgn to do. The much-talked ability to act through the eyes is what makes both the stars more similar than different. As the helplessness of his character’s state of mind is on the relaxed side for the majority of the film, we don’t get to see the intense side we witnessed in the prequel.
Certain decisions with the character of Shriya Saran’s Nandini make her a weak point, in both, the story & the film. She doesn’t go over the board, but her character does. Akshaye Khanna isn’t the Akshaye Khanna I was expecting. Murali Gopy’s Thomas was a whole lot of cunning & clever than Akshaye’s Tarun. The trailer immediately reminded me of his act from Ittefaq but that’s not the case in the film.
Tabu was as much as she was in the trailer, again certain character decisions making her distant from the viewers compared to the prequel. Ishita Dutta’s Anju never touches on the impact Ansiba’s Anju had with exploring the PTSD around the character. Mrunal Jadhav, too, adds nothing substantial to the narrative. Saurabh Shukla & Rajat Kapoor are decent in their roles.
Drishyam 2 Movie Review Rating: 2.5/5 Stars (Two and half stars)
Star Cast: Mohanlal, Meena, Ansiba, Esther Anil, Asha Sharath and ensemble.
Director: Jeethu Joseph
What’s Good: the predecessor, which was so robust that the mentions of it are the strongest points in the complete sequel.
What’s Bad: the expectation that the audience will keep chewing the same gum forever and will grow their power of suspension of disbelief double than expected.
Loo Break: few when it gets too predictable or unrealistic.
Watch or Not?: I want you to only watch why not to make a sequel of a perfect masala thriller, or make it only when you are sure that the screenplay has outdone the first part.
User Rating:
So 6 years have passed since the police last officially investigated Georgekutty’s controversial case and found nothing. But turns out the police department has no other big case to solve, and they have set their eyes on putting the suspicious family in prison. A secret investigation leads to the place where the boy was buried (watch part 1 for where), and George’s cinema instincts are at work yet again but away from realism this time around.
Drishyam 2 Movie Review: Script Analysis
The best thing about Drishyam was the fact that none of the characters was just black or white. Everyone was in the grey zone and had a subjective purpose for whatever they were doing. A man who is hell-bent on saving his family uses the knowledge of films (watching them is his passion) to get rid of a murder charge and even gets successful in it. A mother in the quest of her son, villainously composed but also vulnerable.
Drishyam 2 almost forgets these shades, at least for its supporting parts. What we get is a one-tone story about a man who has been at it day and night and is only thinking about what if. Written by Jeethu Joseph again, the sequel’s story takes off 6 years from the point we left last. The family is still living in the trauma and the night continues to haunt them. What follows is a happy montage, trial to give Anju a normal life, ghost of the past coming back, and Mohanlal being the silent superhero yet again.
But what is missing this time around is the glue of realism to bind this. The screenplay takes too much time in setting up a universe that we already know. It is just the grown-up avatars and change in professions that we need to know. Not that it gets any more interesting when it escalates.
While the first part set the point strong that Georgekutty is a fan of cinema and learned life-saving methods from it. But when he used them, there was a pinch of disbelief, and the audience was able to digest that because the amount of realism was high. With Drishyam 2, the ratio goes upside down completely and the twists and turns become more of ‘it’s only possible because it is a film’.
Not to forget, sometimes when the plot points of the first part create a twist, it does get intriguing, and you can guess the strength of the predecessor from that. When the big twist happens just before the climax and you are intrigued is the castle finally falling. But the end (which will divide audience) happens, it doesn’t reward much.
Drishyam 2 Movie Review: Star Performance
Mohanlal continues to play the silent leader in the sequel but with less of the cunning grin this time around. The actor manages to bring his poised demeanour to work, but the surrounding that is on the boundary to qualify as OTT doesn’t support him. But the actor is true to his calibre and there is no weak move.
Meena continues to be the mother that she was in the first part and give her part most warmth and vulnerability. The best things about casting is reprising the original actors and bringing the realness at least in this department.
Both Ansiba and Esther Anil do what is expected from them, but the former outshines. Asha Sharath has a single tone and that bothered me a lot.
