The first 25 minutes of this film are all over the place. It does not help that the gorgeous Shriya Saran, who plays Vijay's wife in Drishyam (Visual/Sight), delivers her dialogue with what must be marbles in her mouth.

Then a nude video of a girl surfaces, a teenage boy blackmails her and a seemingly perfect world falls apart.

With that, Ajay Devgn, who plays the hapless girl's father, takes over the big screen. He has your attention with his brooding eyes and a quiet intensity with which he meticulously plans things to keep his family together and safe.

The arrival of Tabu as Meera, a top cop you never want to mess with, pits two excellent actors against each other.

With Vijay as her prime suspect, the grieving mother ignores all police protocol and brings in the entire family to get a confessional when the first round of investigations fails to yield any result.

Tabu can act with just her eyes, which pack so much anger, rage and menace that even if you want to feel for her, you do not. There are brutal, gut-wrenching scenes of a family being beaten up in front of one another. Vijay can do nothing as his wife and his daughters are violently punched.

A remake of the 2013 Malayalam- language hit of the same name, the movie raises questions about innocence and guilt.

Its engrossing plot and thrilling ending leave you thinking about how normal lives can sometimes change overnight.

While director Nishikant Kamat's direction needs some help in the first half in particular, there is nothing to fault in writer Jeethu Joseph's "original story", which is the stuff cult classics are made of.