Deva: Shahid Kapoor’s Swagger Can’t Save This Half-Baked Thriller

WHAT IF I TOLD YOU, Shahid Kapoor actually plays two characters in his latest film, Rosshan Andrrews’ Deva? Well, there is Dev-A and Dev-B, and the biggest difference between the two (apart from an alphabet) is that Dev-A sports a full beard, and Dev-B only a stubble. Dev-A is macho, alpha, cunning and borderline annoying if I’m being honest. Dev-B is disoriented, pensive and mysterious.

But even two Shahid Kapoors can’t save a confused film.

Rosshan Andrrews’ Deva has a lot going for it on paper, but the film has too many low-angle, “massy” shots of Dev-A populated in the first half for it to be committed to excellent storytelling (or even average filmmaking). The film ends up being a half-baked whodunnit, a mass vehicle that’s never fully realised (despite Shahid doing everything he can to “hero-ise” every scene he’s in) and a disappointing thriller.

The film begins with police officer Dev Ambre (Shahid Kapoor) calling his senior in the police force to inform him that he’s cracked a case and he knows who the killer is. But before he can reveal anything else, he meets with an accident and loses his memory. We are taken into a flashback to give context to the case. Deva, as he’s colloquially known, is a thug-like police officer who never follows any rules and is feared by both his team and criminals alike. In this part of the movie, Shahid plays this character like Kabir Singh, with flaring nostrils, bulging biceps and intense gazes. When his best friend, righteous police officer Rohan D’silva (Pavail Gulati) is shot dead during an event, he rounds up every criminal in the city to get to the bottom of it, with the help of his senior and brother-in-law, Farhan Khan (Pravesh Rana). They find out there’s a mole in the system, called the Bull, who is helping criminals stay one step ahead of Mumbai police. As soon as Dev-A finds out who the mole is, he calls Farhan, but the accident wipes out his memory.

Enter Dev-B, a more subdued and befuddled Shahid who emulates Aamir Khan from Ghajini (minus the animalistic growls). It’s important to note here that this bifurcation of names isn’t something I’ve made up, but it’s used very seriously in the film’s proceedings. I could sense some sardonic tones in Deva but much like every other plot point and character arc, nothing is ever fully realised in this film (I apologise in advance for having nothing to say about Kubbra Sait and Pooja Hegde because they really don’t have much to do.)

The rest of the film is spent following Dev-B around as he retraces his steps from the fateful night of his accident, to find out who killed his best friend and who is the mole in the police force. The twist is predictable even for those who haven’t seen Mumbai Police, the Malayalam film directed by Rosshan Andrrews on which this film is based. But the bigger disappointment here is that Deva doesn’t retain the big twist from the Malayalam original (iykyk) — which would have actually tied up a lot of loose ends even in this film.

There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense in Deva: an affair with no purpose, Shahid’s haphazard bravado and machismo that has no back story or no context, his relationship with Diya (Pooja Hegde) and why the timing of his scenes with her have no narrative structure; but the biggest confusion of all is the climax. By taking away the climactic twist from Mumbai Police and replacing it with something so basic and predictable, the makers have taken away the film’s only saving grace — its ability to be a word-of-mouth, sleeper hit. Because if they had retained that climax, this film would have redeemed itself in many different ways. Add to that, organic word-of-mouth marketing that would have resulted in more footfalls.

There’s nothing else in Deva worth celebrating; in fact, it’s quite frustrating to see a team like this (Shahid Kapoor-Rosshan Andrrews-Roy Kapur Films) sell us something that I’m fairly certain they may have not believed in themselves. Shahid Kapoor’s swagger is not enough to pull the film through, and it certainly doesn’t help that he overcompensates for the lack of a cohesive story structure.

Nothing hurts more than a good actor who is trapped in a badly written character with a confused direction. We all know Shahid can act, and that he can bring nuance to the most toxic of characters. Deva lets him down, and there’s no easy way to say this. Bollywood remakes of South Indian films have not had the best luck of late (Baby John), but I walked into the film thinking Deva may face the same fate as the Hindi version of Vikram Vedha (which wasn’t a bad film at all, even though not as good as the original). But what angered me more, with every hare-brained, undercooked scene that was popping up in the film, is this clip in which Shahid Kapoor is seen telling a reporter that the film is not a remake of Mumbai Police. It’s not the lie that infuriates me — apart from the climax, everything about the two films is the same — it’s the fact that in 2025, Bollywood is still taking audiences for granted.