twitterfacebookgooglevimeoyoutubemail
CULTURE CENTRE
Film - Theatre - Music/Dance - Books - TV - Gallery - Art - Fashion/Lifestyle - Video

‘Deva’ – Smart procedural is more than the sums of its parts and Shahid Kapoor shines

‘Deva’ – Smart procedural is more than the sums of its parts and Shahid Kapoor shines

Review of the Bollywood film…

IN KEEPING with the anti-hero trend in mainstream Hindi cinema comes ‘Deva’ – an out there cop who doesn’t take kindly to no…

The film itself asks, is Dev Ambre, more like a mafiosi then a cop?

Played superbly by Shahid Kapoor, he holds this film together, patching over a self-indulgent and baggy first half.

By the end, this is a veritable cinematic experience for the way it plays with your sympathies.

Indeed, this is above average Bollywood fare for its plotting and characterisation.

Deva (Shahid Kapoor) in ‘Deva

There is depth, sophistication and nuance and even some interesting social commentary (sure to be more if Deva 2 ever comes to the screen), though it takes a more intense and procedural turn in the second half to get there.

Let’s deal with the slightly unsatisfactory first half till the interval – yes, the scene is set…

There is a pointless dance (item number) scene upfront – we honestly think they didn’t know what to do with it and stuck it at the beginning, believing it couldn’t do much harm. Probably correct.

Ok, so it is a wedding and there is an important relationship being established – Dev’s boss Farhan Khan (Pravesh Rana) is marrying his sister – we don’t see anything of her beyond this.

There are two female parts which are of some – but lower – prominence – to Khan, and Dev’s best friend – and another cop, Rohan D’Silva (Pavail Gulati). There is what becomes Dev’s love interest – Divya Sathaye (Pooja Hegde) – an investigative journalist who has an important function in the film, as does Rohan’s fiancée.

Hegde is underused and the romance is not well established but it isn’t that important in the larger scheme of the movie.

Dev doesn’t wear a uniform, is a rebel and remains good at his work – catching criminals and being a police officer, you can rely on – despite his unorthodox style. He isn’t likeable – is constantly smoking, is rather in love with himself and doesn’t appear to care a lot for anyone beyond Farhan and Rohan – they are all cop buddies.

The first half is mostly forgettable and just a tableau for Kapoor’s considerable acting talents – channelling aggression, violence and a sense of righteousness into a believable character but still perhaps at the outer edges of what we might consider social realism (in a critical sense). Everything is exaggerated – which is fine within the confines of such a film.

The only significant occurrence in the first half is a road traffic incident in which Dev comes off his bike and no one else is involved.

He is in hospital and critical for a while and makes a decent physical recovery.

But there is a problem – he has lost his memory and we know the case he is working on now escapes him.

The story really begins to take off a this point when he and Rohan pursue an escaped convict who keeps managing to evade capture.

There are a couple of subplots that don’t really go anywhere – but that is to be expected in a movie which in the second half becomes an absorbing whodunnit, after Rohan is shot dead at a medal ceremony – we know that it wasn’t he that shot the said jailbird’s accomplice (to get such a medal) but Dev – yet Rohan takes the credit but has to pay the ultimate price or so we believe…

Directed by South Indian Kerala director Rosshan Andrrews, this could well be one of the Bollywood films of the year.

It’s intelligent, well acted and taut in the second half.

The first is flabby and full of Bollywood stylistic tics – which this critic could have done without – but may be necessary in establishing the character and this crime genre which some critics say has the shadows of Bollywood classics, ‘Zanjeer’ (1973) and ‘Deewar’ (1975).

If you like this genre and are not to put off by Bollywood OTT cop drama style, then check this out, you may well like it. We did, in the end.

Acv rating: *** ½ (out of five)

‘Deva’ is in cinemas worldwide now…

Share Button
Written by Asian Culture Vulture