The third Hindi Drishyam film was widely expected to follow the Malayalam playbook once more. Instead, Drishyam: The Conclusion breaks from Jeethu Joseph’s Drishyam 3 and, according to the comparison published by Rediff.com, comes out ahead. It is a rare reversal for a franchise that began as an adaptation and was often judged against its original.
A deliberate break from the original
For the first two instalments, Ajay Devgn’s Vijay Salgaonkar lived inside stories written by Jeethu Joseph for Mohanlal’s Georgekutty. That made commercial sense but left the Hindi films open to the charge that they were lesser copies. This time director Abhishek Pathak and his writers did not remake the Malayalam sequel. They kept what audiences come to Drishyam for—elaborate investigation, planted clues and a hero who stays ahead—while leaving behind the Malayalam film’s focus on Georgekutty’s guilt and paranoia.
Where the Hindi film wins
The comparison makes the case that Drishyam: The Conclusion is stronger for seven specific reasons:
- The twists are set up in plain sight and pay off late, even when one of them quietly adjusts the previous film’s events.
- Vijay Salgaonkar is written as the franchise’s underdog hero: a man with little formal education who uses storytelling and the system itself to protect his family.
- The police procedural is taut: Jaideep Ahlawat’s officer investigates the switched remains and builds the case instead of letting the plot drift.
- Supporting players, including Jaideep Ahlawat, Prakash Raj and Shriya Saran, get consequential moments, though Tabu and Rajat Kapoor are underused.
- The Hindi version avoids melodrama around the daughter’s marriage and refuses to lean on violence or product placement.
- The ending closes the story rather than leaving sequel bait, a point Pathak and Devgn reportedly insisted on.
- The film validates a bigger gamble: a remake franchise can diversify and still satisfy fans, the way Rohit Shetty’s Singham moved away from its Tamil source.
Some of these choices came under pressure. Akshaye Khanna dropped out days before the shoot, and Ahlawat stepped in as Rajveer Singh Tomar, a police officer with a narrower moral range. His tense meeting with Devgn is singled out as one of the film’s standout scenes. The result is a thriller built around procedure and delayed payoff rather than emotional wallowing.
Why the comparison matters
Hindi cinema’s remakes are routinely treated as the lesser equation. This reversal matters because it tests a different assumption: that a sequel which stops copying can still understand the property. The piece argues that is exactly what happened. The Malayalam Drishyam 3 became one of the highest-grossing Malayalam films despite mixed reviews, and Drishyam 4 is already on the way. The Hindi team chose to end on a high instead of stretching the golden goose.
The lesson for audiences and the trade is not that originality always wins. It is that respecting a franchise’s core promise matters more than following the source’s next chapter. For now, Bollywood’s long-considered copy has become the version fans are talking about.
Source: Rediff.com
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