Deva

Deva is like one of those movies that Mahesh Bhatt would ‘direct’ over the phone in the 90s. It has all the ingredients — a brutish hero with a heart of gold, plenty of flimsy female characters that exist purely to serve him, and plotting that relies almost entirely on contrivances and clichés. The only thing it doesn’t have is Avtar Gill in a supporting role, but guess what, Upendra Limaye more than makes up for it. Starring Shahid Kapoor, Deva is directed by Rosshan Andrrews; it’s a remake of his Malayalam-language original, titled Mumbai Police. They downplayed the remake angle during the promotions, to the point that it almost felt like they were pretending that Deva was an original. And then, news began to spread about Andrrews having shot three different climaxes for the movie, perhaps in an effort to throw audiences off, or — and this is more likely — to lure them into theatres with the tease of something new.

Dev Ambre, a no-nonsense fiery cop, meets with an accident while nearly cracking a high-profile investigation involving a fellow officer and a dear friend Rohan. After a partial memory loss, he returns to work and is asked to piece together crucial details around the case. He needs to come to terms with himself and his problematic past to find answers. Where does this quest lead him?

When the lead hero, Shahid Kapoor, talks of the relevance of ‘Deewar’, should we pay attention to the subtext? Indeed, ‘Deva’, like many of Amitabh Bachchan’s films as the angry young man, is about a man seething and bristling from within. His fractured relationship with his father (not seen in the film though) too is an important leitmotif. Clearly, the ‘Deewar’ connect is not restricted to Bachchan’s huge cutout alone. But before we touch base with Deva’s vulnerabilities, Shahid Kapoor in the titular part emerges as a heroic figure. He bashes before he speaks, smokes like a chimney, drinks while on duty; in short, he is the quintessential bad good guy. The Kabir Singh syndrome manifests and persists in this police avatar.

There are flawed protagonists. And then there are problematic men masquerading as heroes. Dev Ambre aka Deva belongs to the latter category. Deva is a trigger-happy Mumbai cop whose designation is disproportionate to the body count he has notched up. Deva has severe anger issues, conveniently notched down to him being a rebel. He doesn’t think twice before sticking the barrel of a gun into the mouth of a woman who is not a criminal by any measure. Dev is a huge proponent of police brutality, but gets away with it every time. No one can say ’no’ to him. For that would mean that person’s body parts could be in real danger of being distanced from his body. When Dev asks his girlfriend Diya (Pooja Hegde) what she likes about him, she replies with: ‘Besides your arrogance, your grumpy face and your huge anger issues, I like the fact that you have a child in you’.