31 January,2025 10:27 PM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
Shahid Kapoor in Deva
Of course, I don't know better, but this is the sort of film that, I suspect, starts with the semi-profound idea! That is, let's make a buddy-cop actioner, and cast Shahid Kapoor at the centre of it. Everything else is meant to follow. Alas, it doesn't, always.
To be fair, during some parts, it does - beginning with montage shots and similar scenes (shot by Amit Roy), capturing the chaos of lower-deck South Mumbai, followed by a few cracker sequences similarly set in live locations.
Such as that police raid inside a Dongri-type ilaaka, using drones, wherein the entire neighbourhood, emerging from hideouts, turns against the armed police-force - driving them out, while the villain to be nabbed, casually exits from the ensuing confusion/congestion.
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Sadly, such moments of speed and scale are too few and far between. What remains are such long passages of nothingness that you have little choice but to sometimes contemplate sleep instead.
This is also the kinda movie that people who've watched it will inevitably say fans of Shahid must. Which, they would, anyway, no? That is, if they're truly fans of the star; in this case, going by the collective noun, âshanatics', I'm told.
It's easy to tell why the lead actor picked up this script - it is a Shahid showcase/showreel. There are, in some ways, two Shahids in the cinema, for the price of one.
The first, you can see, sufficiently channelling his inner, dark, drunk Kabir Singh (2019) - that's the aggro, angry young man that he hit big with, from the remake of the Telugu, Arjun Reddy (2017). Shahid followed up this action hero image/avatar, with Bloody Daddy (2023).
There's something to be minted out there. The chain-smoking character rolls over his lit cigarette inside his mouth; rides motor-bike with one hand; sleeps with a married woman next-door; dares dangerous politicians in public. He barges into a newspaper office to beat the living daylights of whoever wrote an unflattering diary-item on him.
Often, he blurts out stuff bordering on the inane, "I am the mafia," or, "Mumbai kisi ke baap ka nahin hai, Mumbai police ka hai," implying, of course, that the cops hold a monopoly over violence (true).
The swag/tashan is complete. This bloke, who's a Mumbai cop, though, loses memory in a road accident.
What returns is a more introspective Shahid; sharp, well-mannered, even if looking clueless. Beyond nature and nurture, I guess, memory must play a big part in how we behave!
There is reference to the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Don, through the title song, in the film. That was another study in contrasts, wasn't it?
All said, Deva is an actioner, yes. But it is all the more a murder mystery, where everybody is a suspect, until proven guilty.
If it stuck to being the former, then the story in a big-budget theatrical, circa 2025, wouldn't matter - audiences go in for bone-crushing actioners, chiefly for the grand sequences, I'm half-convinced.
If it's the latter, though, you'd need a lot of layers, sub-plots and backstories, to wonder throughout, who killed whom, how, and why; something that could be a fine multiplex release, circa 2008.
Sadly, the film, totally confused in its tone and purpose, between the two, follows through neither path. To the point that a cop (calm and collected, Pavail Gulati), has been shot dead, at point-blank range, at a public event of the police itself!
Shahid's eponymous lead is investigating the case, under his boss (Pravessh Rana; so sincere). Somehow, the leads in the case don't matter. Multiple characters simply slip in and out of the screen, including the heroine (Pooja Hegde).
The crucial question is, "Who killed ACP Rohan D'Silva?" The constant thought going through my head is, "Who cares!"
Deva is a remake of the Malayalam, Mumbai Police, which was the same director, Rosshan Andrrews's debut, in 2013, starring Prithiviraj Sukumaran. The credit for story still belongs to Bobby-Sanjay (a writing duo).
As it is, what's a Malayalam movie doing with the title Mumbai Police? That said, the best scripts get written in Kerala. I'm still unsure pure action is their strong suit.
Consider the dumbass Rifle Club that dropped on Netflix the same week as this film. Deva would be on Netflix soon too. Mumbai Police is easily available on Hotstar.
The original attained some cult status, I'm told, mainly because of its climax, or the ending. The twist in the tale that, again, Malayalam movies are rather good at - none can match Iratta (2023); or even Drishyam 2 (2021), also remade in Hindi.
I speed-watched Mumbai Police. I feel Deva has kinda bettered that climax, in the sense of how dated the point of the original was. The film, in that sense, suffers from a problem that's opposite of several scripts.
They have a solid finale. Most don't. They had to work the screenplay backwards, thereafter. Couldn't crack that bit, engagingly enough.
So, you wait out 130/154 vacant, meandering minutes to reach the end; feeling nothing, but bored, most of the way, anyway. Ah, so be it.
