Sightlines · reception

How Drishyam was received

2015 · Nishikant Kamat · Drishyam on Sightlines

The arc

In 2015 it lived in the shadow of Mohanlal's Malayalam original — a solid hit, but the default review was 'watch the 2013 one instead.' Then the sequel's monster post-pandemic box office run in 2022 retroactively canonized it as Bollywood's go-to thriller, the version a whole generation of Hindi-film watchers met first.

What’s debated

The forever fight: Mohanlal vs Ajay Devgn vs Kamal Haasan — which Drishyam is definitive, and does the Hindi remake stand on its own or just coast on Jeethu Joseph's script?

Its footprint

Every October 2nd, Indian social media floods with the same joke about where Vijay Salgaonkar was on the 2nd and 3rd — the alibi has become an annual Gandhi Jayanti meme ritual, and 'pulling a Drishyam' is now shorthand for an airtight cover story.

Where it stands

The crowd-pleaser entry point to one of India's great thriller franchises — cinephiles steer you to the Malayalam original, but this is the version half of India can quote.

Did you know? It was already the FIFTH version of the story in just two years — after the 2013 Malayalam original came Kannada (Drishya) and Telugu (Drushyam) in 2014, then Kamal Haasan's Tamil Papanasam just weeks before this one in 2015.