[Movie Review] Drushyam

Language: Telugu
Cast         : Venkatesh, Meena, Nadia, Naresh, Kritika etc.
Director  :  Sripriya

Drushyam is a remake of Malayalam super hit movie "Drishyam", which garnered great popularity for its unconventional story. This one comes in a surprise new genre – Family Thriller, as the movie tries to capture different family emotions simultaneously to narrating a suspense thriller and it does not fail to impress you in both ways.

It is story of Rambabu (Venkatesh), a cable TV owner in a small village who lives a family life with his wife and two daughters. His obsession of life is watching films and he not only watches movies of different languages and genres but also uses the knowledge obtained from films to resolve real life issues. This way he becomes a man loved by all people around, and in the process earns hostility of a corrupt police constable, a subtle role played by Ravi Kale ferociously. In his normal life comes a sudden turn with which the entire world around him turns upside down and his family is in danger. What will he do to save themselves, what will happen to him and why the Inspector General(IG) Geetha, played by Nadhiya, is after their family forms the rest of the story.

The movie opens up with usual comedy and family scenes as director seems to have taken time to start telling the story. It gains pace in first half slowly and reaches an interesting point by interval but the real edge of the seat narration with perfectly carved out screenplay is found in second half which stumps the audience. It is rare to witness an intellectual movie in Telugu, that too with a star hero playing the lead, this one does come as a surprise with convincing twists and turns, all credit to Jeethu Joseph for a taut script and gripping screenplay.

The choice of actors are also seemed very apt, with Venkatesh, after some recent slowdown in career, comes with a stunning performance, as family dramas are his favourite repertoire, here he mixes his emotions well as a protective father and a man on a mission. Meena comes back to big screen in Telugu after long gap and fits in well as a middle class mother and kritika who played the role of daughter makes a good screen presence and impresses with her expressive eyes which speaks all. Director Sripriya has incorporated all spices well to impress not just the family audience but everyone else too, as she ensured each detail be well explained sans the mass audience be left out, however first half an hour of the movie could have been better than what has been tried by the director. Songs are well placed, the background sometimes gets too loud but the screenplay and some good acting by leading actors saves the day.

All in all, it is a wonderful entertainer which will test your ability to think what’s next and keeps you hooked till the end. Hope with such a movie, Telugu industry may get a new wave of new story telling which does not depend on heroism and routine tamasha but makes the story Hero of the movie.

Rating : 4/5

Bottomline: If you enjoy suspense thrillers then a must watch for you and for others it is certainly more than just a “One time Watch”.