The outcome of this Bollywood movie reminds me of a psychological thriller book titled “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides. I didn’t see the end coming!!! 

Written by Sumit Arora alongside four others, directed by Roshan Andrews and produced by Umesh Bansal in collaboration with a host of other producers and Executive Producers like Priyanka Mehrotra this movie titled “DEVA” which first had its theatrical release on the 31st of January, 2025 is now available for streaming on Netflix since the 28th of March, 2025.

Synopsis: (MAY include spoilers) 

Deva ‘Dev’ (Shahid Kapoor) is a police officer but his manner of operations is an unconventional one as he doesn’t follow laid down rules and regulations in carrying out his duties.

With notorious gangster Prabhat Jadhav (played by Manish Wadhwa) on the loose to the frustration & terror of the whole of Mumbai, Deputy Commissioner of Police Farhan (portrayed by Pravessh Rana) together with his team led by Dev will not rest until the kingpin is brought to justice.

A tragedy will then change the entire mood and trajectory of this film. What calamity happened? How did this change the course of things? Well, why not grab your popcorn and/or favourite drink, munch and sip along as you follow events unfold in this action thriller with a runtime of 2hours 34minutes.

My Take:
Straight up, the duration which is super long could easily be a bore for some viewers but the infusion of action saves the day in my opinion. This movie took off with the first FOUR MINUTES just giving credits, disclaimers and rollout of cast and crew against a backdrop of a design template. That could have been eliminated or reduced.

I mean, I thought that in this day and age, Bollywood would have gone past that and just delve into the movie without all of those preliminaries; better still do that while the movie is already playing out.

Be that as it may, this was totally enjoyable, the start notwithstanding. The acting here was incredible with my best performance being from Shahid Kapoor as the lead actor. Loved his swag and charisma.

The plot and direction were cleverly executed. The story was clear and message delivered crisp.

 Injury details were consistent. The plot twist was mindblowingly good. Personally, I didn’t see that coming. 

This movie highlights police brutality, corruption amongst politicians, the abuse of power, and the poor standards of living even in suburban areas in India. While these are not new themes as far as Bollywood is concerned, it did however work well with the storyline.

Most outstanding of the messages passed in this film is that of betrayal and how much evil there is in the hearts of people even the ones you may have trusted with your life.

The cinematic elements were superb with great theatrics and an impressive sound score that set the tone. Character development though sometimes confusing, often clearly plays out well which comes with paying attention. For a viewer who watches movies in a distracted manner, you could easily lose sight of who is who sometimes.

Subtitling was good. Makeup and costuming were great. Location was natural but I’ve noticed that most police stations used in most Bollywood movies I’ve seen always look same. Is it that there’s same pattern of buildings or they use same police stations for these movies? 

Well, as with everything else, this movie isn’t without its shortcomings. Hence, I’d love to state some of my observations thus:

1. This movie adopted the good old memory loss (amnesia) as its central tool for execution. I’d say while this is a game of convenience in writing especially for a film, turns out, it even made for the longer duration which by the way could have been shorter. Watched this at a faster speed to help me cope.

2. Dev could not remember a thing after a devastating accident but could remember to refer to Rohan’s fiancee ‘Rebecca’ by her name? Okay! That makes sense? Really? 

3. SOME of the moves here were questionable and really weren’t properly coordinated to be in sync with the plot. This is especially in some of the scenes where Dev & his team are going after people following leads.

4. The emotions expressed at the end of the film really did not convey as much of the intensity for what was passed across particularly to a viewer like myself. It then appears to have watered down the already immensely shocking revelation.

5. We know that Dev had many enemies due to his modus operandi but it wasn’t clear who attacked him. Or did I miss it? 

 Did he really even have memory loss? 

6. In all honesty, I would have loved to see some reactions from Rohan’s family in the middle of the film and MOSTLY in the end. To me, their side of the movie wasn’t sufficiently portrayed. This aspect wasn’t impressive if you ask me.

In conclusion, besides some of its imperfections as with most, this movie was insightful, educating, entertaining, relaxing, thought-provoking, relatable, compelling and interesting.

Loved how it touched on the impact on children for how some parents would push their kids too hard and will only be proud of them when they do something outstanding.

Kudos to the cast and crew involved in this project.