Drishyam 3 review: Finally, Georgekutty slips; Mohanlal stands tall

Prabhakar (Siddique) keeps reiterating in Drishyam 3 that Georgekutty (Mohanlal) isn't the mastermind everyone claims him to be, that it is bhagyam, luck, that has helped him get away. It is a moment of sharp self-awareness from Jeethu Joseph, an acknowledgement of the franchise's own mythology. But Drishyam 3 itself could use some of that bhagyam, because the writing and the stakes are pale shadows of what came before.

A family man off his guard

The film opens with another of Jeethu's meta flourishes. We watch a family man get arrested for his crimes, the camera pulls out, and we realise we have been watching a film — titled Drishyam — produced by Georgekutty himself. He is now a successful producer, striking deals with international houses for overseas rights. His elder daughter Anju (Anisbha Hassan) has been declared fully recovered by her therapist, and the family begins looking for a match for her, though every prospective groom slips away.

Abroad, Geetha Prabhakar (Asha Sarath) is deep in depression, pushing her husband Prabhakar to the edge.

Unlike the second part, Georgekutty is not ready. He is not setting things in motion. We see an absent-minded, distracted family man — which is an interesting dramatic choice, until the film struggles to pay it off.

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Red herrings, diminishing returns

Until the interval, it is genuinely unclear what the central conflict will be. The film chases multiple red herrings — a minor renovation in the house, Georgekutty's reluctance to completely rebuild, scattered anxieties — but when the villains finally arrive, the surprise is muted. The franchise has always thrived on psychological tension over plot mechanics, and Jeethu Joseph remains skilled at mapping the interior lives of his characters. Following that trend, Drishyam 3 turns its attention to collateral damage — the cost of one man's relentless, all-consuming need to protect his family.

The new antagonists open up a genuinely interesting moral dimension. But when an old adversary returns, the film loses the organic quality that made the first two parts exceptional. Characters slide into cigarette-smoking vengeance mode, carrying the kind of blunt villainy the Drishyam universe had always been too intelligent to indulge in. The third act is where the franchise's ambitions most visibly outpace its execution. Jeethu Joseph has set a nearly impossible standard for himself — Mohanlal's Thoduram already felt underwhelming when it failed to deliver the kind of brainy, layered closure audiences had come to expect. Hence, Drishyam 3 stumbles in exactly the same place.

Mohanlal carries what's left

Despite these failings, the performances hold the film together. Small, casual quarrels between Anu (Esther Anil) and her mother Rani (Meena) land with quiet warmth, and also do quiet work in showing how differently the two daughters have grown -- the sensitive and vulnerable old daughter and the modern and rebellious young one. Mohanlal, meanwhile, plays Georgekutty's unravelling with subtlety. A long stare into nothing, spitting water on the floor instead of the basin, losing temper... he makes you feel the slippage before you understand it.

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Is the monster worth saving?

The most compelling thread in Drishyam 3 is the examination of Georgekutty through Anju's eyes -- the question of whether the man who set out to slay a monster has slowly become one. The Nietzschean undercurrent is present and genuinely provocative, but it needed more depth and more courage to land with full force.

While the idea is registered, it is not explored. We needed to see things through Anju, as she ends up being the one facing the brunt of all of it. While the film takes a lot of time getting to the conflict, it is in a hurry to finish things off. Veena Nandakumar, who becomes a central character in the first half, shockingly disappears later. Such glaring errors are unbecoming of Jeethu Joseph. Not just Georgekutty, even Jeethu seems to be losing the grip of things in the third part.

In the end, the second part remains the better conclusion— a man pardoned not by the law, but sentenced to a life of paranoia and restlessness. That was a full stop. Drishyam 3 is an unnecessary comma, added by two exceptionally talented men to a sentence that did not need them.

It's time Jeethu Joseph let sleeping dogs lie.