SPOILER ALERT! This review will have comparisons with the original. So, if you haven’t watched the 2013 Malayalam film Mumbai Police, kindly refrain from the rest of the review. From the time it was rumored that the debut Hindi film of Malayalam director Rosshan Andrrews, Deva, starring Shahid Kapoor, was a remake of Prithviraj Sukumaran starrer Mumbai Police, many were curious to know whether a star vehicle film like Deva would show the guts to portray its hero as a homosexual. And when the promos were dropped, the chances sort of diminished as one could see a hyper-masculine Kabir Singh hangover version of Shahid Kapoor as Deva. But what really makes this movie a mess is the tampering Rosshan Andrrews did with the script. It is very weird that a film that showed a wild version of Shahid Kapoor in its release promo, along with fast cuts and loud music, gets to be described as a dull film.
Dev Ambre, an ACP in the Mumbai Police, is our central character. He has this image of a reckless cop who has no hesitation in going against even the biggest of people. His police brutality accounts are notorious, and he doesn’t have many friends. At one point, when he was handling the murder of a fellow police officer, he got involved in a road accident and lost his memory. How this new Dev, who does not know who he really is, manages to complete the investigation is what we see in Deva.
Similar to the original, the film starts with this dialogue of the hero calling Farhan and saying that the case is closed, followed by the accident. While the Malayalam version opted for a real stunt with no use of CGI, the big-budget Hindi version has a terrible CGI accident sequence that just puts you off from the very beginning itself. 5 minutes later, we have the Bhasad Macha song, where Dev (Antony Moses) is dancing in his sister’s wedding. By taking one of his best works to Bollywood and meddling with its screenplay, Rosshan Andrrews basically gave aspiring filmmakers a lesson about how screenplay plays a key role in delivering a story properly.
A lot of the things that happen in the first half of the original are happening in the second half of Deva, and all these creative choices to make it different from the original are actually spoiling the beauty of the unraveling of the ultimate twist. Because of the burden of a star like Shahid Kapoor heading this film, Deva is trying to be this macho hero flick. Since this version of Mumbai Police does not have the spine to use the homosexuality angle of the original, they are forced to create a new track that is extremely generic. This unsurprising track offers them scope to boost the masculinity of the hero and even lets the film have a heroine, who, thankfully, was not a showpiece. Deva is one movie that made me believe that budget constraints can actually push the creativity of makers. Remember that scene from Mumbai Police where Antony Moses shows the lady how the original color of the green car was actually blue? The contrast in colors they show in the Hindi version has the color saturation of some of those Rohit Shetty films.
Shahid Kapoor’s Dev is basically a mix of Kabir Singh and Haider. The testosterone-high portrayal of the character definitely looks sexy on screen because of his physical flexibility and the ability to carry the character with a swagger. The Dev B version of the character actually had a Dev D kind of look. Pavail Gulati got to play the crucial role of ACP Rohan D’Silva, and he felt like an apt choice for that particular role. Pravesh Rana plays the role of DCP Farhan. Pooja Hegde does not have much to do here as the leading lady, who happens to be a journalist who writes about police brutality.
When it comes to a remake, it is always good to see filmmakers coming up with a what-if version that would make us appreciate their creativity. But in the case of Deva, it feels like they failed to understand what element in the story made the original a raved classic. By avoiding that key element and then shuffling the screenplay in a way that the wow factor completely gets sucked out, Deva destroys itself by following formulaic ingredients.
While Mumbai Police was a complicated thriller and a character study, Deva just ends up looking like a lackluster hero-worshipping tale. The urge to make Deva a Shahid Kapoor action film was so great that they added a jail fight sequence at the very end of the movie. During the press meet, Shahid Kapoor proudly told the media, “Our director is from Kerala.” Well, I guess, along with the director, they should consider acquiring screenplay and guts in remaking certain films.
While Mumbai Police was a complicated thriller and a character study, Deva just ends up looking like a lackluster hero-worshipping tale.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
