Deva Review: A Poor Retelling of Deva-stating & Derogatory Thriller

Deva is a Hindi remake of Malayalam thriller Mumbai Police, and stars Shahid Kapoor in the lead role. Read our review here - (Movie Talkies)

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Sameer Ahire
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Deva Review

RATING - ⭐ ⭐ 2/5*

Deva Review Movie Talkies:

With Deva, Rosshan Andrrews presents a Hindi adaptation of his Malayalam thriller, Mumbai Police. Instead of a gay character, the main protagonist here is a womanizer and a corrupt officer, and that is the only change you will notice. The second change is the addition of Pooja Hegde, aka Heroine’s role, which is quite predictable since the hero is not portrayed as a gay character. However, the film suffers more from its dated storytelling than these anticipated flaws. The narrative appears confused about whether to become a mass film or a neat thriller, and in that struggle, the main essence of Deva is completely lost.

Deva

Based on Mumbai Police (2013), Deva tells the story of an unstable police officer, Deva Ambre (Shahid Kapoor), who is honest, aggressive, and has anger issues. While he is confrontational with every criminal and politician, he is infatuated with a news reporter, Diya (Pooja Hegde). Deva shares a strong friendship with two of his colleagues, almost like a brotherhood. One of them, Rohan (Pavail Gulati), is shot dead on the day he is to receive a gallantry award, and Deva is assigned the task of finding the killer. Deva discovers the killer, but in the next moment, he has an accident. He loses his memory, and his senior officer gives him another chance to find the killer since he has done it before. Will Deva be able to find the killer with little of his past to recall?

Deva

Since it’s been about 13 years, I assume many of you have seen Mumbai Police, so I’ll directly get to the point instead of avoiding spoilers. The Malayalam thriller is, by many means, derogatory to the uniform and the main character, who is supposed to earn some respect. In this film, that sexual identity element is removed—thank god—but what’s left for the twist then? The configuration of Deva first goes wrong on paper; forget the on-screen material, which is too abrupt and clueless. We have a wild entry for the hero, and while I liked it, how many times do you need that background score, slow-motion walks, and movements to elevate the scene? It becomes tedious right after the first scene. By the time the twist is revealed, you have no patience left to stay and view it. I saw a couple of people getting up and exiting the auditorium even before the full twist was explained. The screenplay is that lengthy and boring. The love story between Shahid and Pooja's characters never started actually, but still you have to put a kissing scene between them and make it look forced.

Deva

The performance of Shahid Kapoor is decent, but I expect much better from him. The teaser was cut in such a manner that it was supposed to give us an idea of a mass hero, but in the film, it loses that value due to repetitiveness. Kapoor hasn't put in much effort and does remind you of his wild characterization from Kabir Singh with that arrogant talk and smoking scenes, but beyond that, I didn't find anything good. Pooja Hegde disappoints once again, and I'd really like to see her in character-driven roles in the future. Even a mainstream heroine is okay, but she should have some screen presence and substance that people can remember for at least a while. Pavail Gulati was a perfect fit, Pravesh Rana was okay, Girish Kulkarni was pretty good, while Kubbra Sait and Aditi Sharma passed the time without much effort. The rest of the supporting cast was hardly notable.

Deva

The biggest fault in Deva is its technical aspects. The action scenes are poorly designed, and the sound design for the same is terrible. You just can't feel the intensity of those action scenes. Deva is beating the goons brutally, but that brutality is hardly visible to the eyes and ears. The editing also brings the film further down. Two hours and 36 minutes—God, why didn't it end half an hour ago? The Deva Rap doesn't help much, and Bhasad Macha has zero impact. Roshan Andrrews could have skipped the idea of remaking Mumbai Police, which I personally believe couldn't be successful at the box office. But still, they tried and failed. The box office numbers for this film will only encourage the movement to "Save Bollywood from remakes" and are likely to provide another lesson for Shahid Kapoor after Jersey. Bro, you can't get Kabir Singh every time.

Deva Rosshan Andrrews Pooja Hegde Pavail Gulati Shahid Kapoor